t 


.  5^rlS«]:)/ 

t  I  CfuEER  1 1 


^-A. 


UCSB  LIBRARY  »*<-..,  £7 

\-Hb(  43  |2,dlu4M«u  / 

^f  ^,x/vl5   \>V- 

?> 


O 


LISTENING    TO    BIRD-TALK. 


See  page  33. 


"AI.KS  BY  QUEER  FOLKS 


MORE  LAND  AND   WATER  FRIENDS 


BY 

MARY    E.    BAMFORD 

AUTHOR  OF 
"Mv  LAND  AND  WATER  FRIENDS,"  "LOOK-ABOUT  CLUB,"  ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED 


BOSTON 

D.    LOTHROP    COMPANY 

1893 


COPYRIGHT,  1893, 

BY 
D.  LOTHROP  COMPANY. 

All  rights   reserved. 


CONTENTS. 


CRY  FROM   A   MENAGERIE,  A i 

BEREFT   NEIGHBOR'S    LAMENT,  A  ......  18 

BLUE-JAY'S   JABBERINGS,  A 31 

NUMBER  OF   HOMELY   PEOPLE,  A 45 

SEA-ANEMONE'S    SIGHINGS,  A 49 

TREE-TOAD'S    CHIRPINGS,  A 68 

SEAL'S    SAYINGS,  A 75 

EARTH-WORM'S   REMARKS,  AN 82 

TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS,  A     .        .        .        .  91 

PHOLAS'   PROTESTATIONS,  A 107 

"DADDY  "AND    HIS    DIPTERA 119 

TALK   BY   AN   ANT,  A 125 

ANOTHER   VOICE   FROM   A   MENAGERIE      ....  134 

SHREW'S    STATEMENTS,  A 153 

"SEA-PORK"    AND    ITS    CHANGES 162 

BOSSY'S  MOOINGS                 171 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


"  I  can  Laugh  " i 

Squire  Coyote  Kicks  away  the  Stars  .  3 

The  Coyote  and  the  Bat     ...  4 
The  Hen-keepers  Do  not  Like  Neighbor 

Coyote 7 

The  Sloth  that  Hung  on  the  Tree       .  14 

Old  Sam  Climbs  for  his  Dinner          .  16 

"  Neighbor  Hairy-skin  "...  18 

Ammophila  Gryphus  ....  19 

The  "  Tarantula  killer  "...  28 

Pompilus  Tropicus     ....  28 

Ichneumon  Suturalis  ....  29 

Aphidius  Triticaphis  ....  30 

The  Curlew        .....  32 

The  Black-throated  Diver  ...  34 

Blue-jays 35 

View  of  the  Pyramids          ...  37 

The  Sacred  Ibis          ....  38 

The  Bernicle-Goose    ....  39 

Barnacles   .         .                  ...  40 

Royal  "  Swan  Mark  "...  41 

Hotinus  Subocellatus          ...  45 

Bell  Bearer 46 

Hemiptycha  Punctata         ...  47 

Hypsauchenia     .         .         .         .         .  48 

Smooth  Anemone  (closed)           .         .  49 

Smooth  Anemone  (fishing)          .         .  52 


Sea-anemone 55 

Bunodes  Crassicornis          ...  55 

U  raster  Rubens 56 

Vilella  Limbosa           .         .         .         .    •  56 

In  Search  of  Star-fish          ...  57 

Common  Madrepore  ....  62 

The  Sea-mouse  .        .         .        .        .  64 

Shell  of  Sea  Hare      .         .         .        .  65 

Shell  of  Aplysia  Inca          ...         .  65 

Aplysia  Inca 66 

Kind  Papa  Frog  takes  care  of  the  Eggs  7 1 

The  Igloo 75 

The  Sea-lion 76 

Sealchie  Answers  to  her  Tamer's  Call  77 

Ma  Could  Slip  over  the  Ice         .         .  79 

A  Lowly  Person          ....  82 

A  Boy's  Use  for  Earth-worms    .         .  85 

Larva  of  one  of  the  Carabidas     .         .  88 

"  Sexton  Beetle  "  89 

Sexton                  90 

Water  Beetles 90 

Larva  of  Orgyia  Leucostigma     .         .  91 

"  She  Gave  me  an  Apple-leaf  "  .         .  93 

Cocoon  of  Tussock-moth    ...  94 
"  Poo'  'ittle  Patter-pillar,"  said  the  Small 

Girl      ....'..  95 

Larva  and  Pupa  of  Papilio  Turnus     .  99 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Tortoise-shell  Butterfly  101 

Nettle  Tortoise-shell  Eggs          .        .  102 

Peacock  Butterfly  of  Europe      .         .  102 

"  Night  Peacock  "  103 

The  Lobster  Moth     ....  103 

The  Puss  Caterpillar          .        .        .  104 

The  Puss  Moth 104 

Winter  Moths  —  Male  and  P'emale    .  105 

Caliper  Butterfly         ....  105 

Pholas  Dactylus          ....  107 
I  Send  the   Particles  up  one  of  my 

Siphons 108 

Pholas  Crispata .         .         .         .         .  1 1 1 

Pholas  Melanoura      .         .        .         .  in 

Pholas  Papyracea       .         .         .         .  112 

Razor-shell,  or  Solen          .         .        .  112 

In  Search  of  Pholades        .        .        .  113 

Common  Cockle         .         .         .         .  116 

Daddy  Longlegs         .        .        .        .  119 

The  Chinese  Cousin  .         .        .        .  119 

Leather-jacket 120 

Tsetse  Fly 121 

Syrphus  Politus          .         .        .        .  122 

Syrphus  Pyrastin        ....  123 


The  Bat's  Favorite  Position 

"  Why,  Pussy,  what  is  that  you  have?: 

asked  the  woman 
Ant  Larva  ...... 

Ant  Pupa 

The  Arabian  Camel    .... 
Water-cells  of  the  Camel's  Stomachs 

The  Llama 

Neighbor  Tiger 

The  Mango 

The  Rukh  — after  a  Persian  Drawing 

Rukh's  Egg 

My  Nose  is  too  Pointed  for  a  Mouse 
I  am  not  a  Mouse,  I  am  a  Shrew 
The  Water  Shrew      .... 
Gottfried  Mind's  Favorite  . 

Tunicate 

"  What  kind  of  a  fruit  do  you  call  that  ? " 

Pyrosoma 

"  Animal  Life  "  . 
Bossy  in  her  Own  Yard 

A  Cow  Idol 

Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut     .... 
Sitting  on  a  Make-believe  Egg  . 


127 
129 
129 
134 
135 
137 
141 

H3 
150 


'55 
'57 
159 
162 
'65 
168 
170 
i?3 
'75 
I76 
178 


TALKS  BY  QUEER  FOLKS. 


A   CRY   FROM   A   MENAGERIE. 


I  WISH  that  peo- 
ple now  believed  as 
many  stories  about 
hyenas  as  were  be- 
lieved in  old  times, 
for  then  I  do  not 
think  we  should  be 
shut  up  in  cages. 
"i  CAN  LAUGH.-  People  used  to  say 

that  hyenas  could  imitate  men's  voices,  and  could  call 
people  by  name.  It  is  true  that  I  have  a  very  queer 
voice,  but  I  do  not  think  it  is  so  much  like  a  man's. 
People  used  to  say,  too,  that  hyenas  could  change  the 
color  of  their  hair  whenever  they  wished  to  do  so,  and 


2  A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 

that  in  a  hyena's  eye  was  a  stone  that  would  make 
a  man  able  to  prophesy,  if  the  stone  were  taken  out 
and  put  under  the  man's  tongue.  I  wonder  if  any  of 
my  relatives  were  ever  killed  by  any  man  who  wanted 
to  find  the  stone  and  become  a  prophet  ? 

Other  folks  believed  that  the  shadow  of  a  hyena 
would  keep  a  dog  from  barking,  and  in  Abyssinia 
hyenas  used  to  be  called  "  enchanters,"  and  the  people 
would  not  use  the  skin  of  a  hyena  till  it  had  been 
prayed  over  by  a  priest. 

Well,  I  cannot  help  myself,  I  suppose.  People 
around  here  will  not  believe  such  stories,  and  perhaps 
I  should  be  shut  up,  any  way,  if  they  were  believed. 
Neighbor  Coyote  in  the  next  cage  says  he  cannot  help 
himself,  either.  He  told  me  a  story  that  he  says 
some  of  the  Navajo  Indians  tell  about  him.  These 
Indians  say  that  the  Coyote  is  responsible  for  the 
way  the  stars  look  in  the  sky.  Once,  say  the  Indians, 
before  there  were  any  stars  in  the  sky  at  all,  the  old 
men  of  the  Navajoes  piled  up  a  heap  of  stars,  and 
gathered  around  the  heap,  ready  for  work.  The  old 
men  had  decided  that  they  would  embroider  the  sky 


A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 


V 

with  stars,  making  beautiful  patterns  of  bears,  and 
birds,  and  such  things.  But  just  as  the  old  men  set 
to  work  a  Coyote  rushed  into  the  midst  of  the  group, 
crying  out,  "  Why  all  this  trouble  and  embroidery  ?  " 
and  scattered  the  pile  of  stars  all  over  the  sky,  where 
one  may  see  them  lying  now, 
for  no  one  ever  picked  them 
up,  and  the  beautifully  em- 
broidered bears  and  birds  were 
never  made.  I  told  Neighbor 
Coyote  that  I  thought  that  a 
nonsensical  story,  and  he  said 


he    thought    so,    too.       I 


afraid  that  those  Indians  who 
tell  this  story  do  not  know 
very  much  about  the  One  who 
really  made  the  stars  and  gave  them  their  places. 
The  keeper  who  comes  around  to  feed  us  every 
day  is  a  man  who  knows  the  Indian  stories  about  the 
Coyote,  and  thinks  such  stories  might  be  turned  into 
rhyme.  So  the  keeper  has  made  these  rhymes,  and 
sometimes  he  sings  them  to  the  Coyote: 


am 


SQUIRE    COYOTE     KICKS     AWAY    THE 
STARS. 


A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 

Why  do  the  stars  lie  scattered  at  night 
As  if  no  one  had  ever  placed  them  right  ? 
'Twas  the  work  of  naughty  Coyote. 

For  once,  not  a  star  could  be  seen  overhead ; 

They  were  all  piled  up  in  a  heap,  instead. 

Now  some  old  men  sat  by  those  stars  one  day : 

"  Let's  embroider  the  sky  with  them  all,"  said  they. 

"  We  will  make  with  them  pictures  of  birds  and  bears, 

And  beautiful  patterns  of  dogs  and  hares." 


JA 


But  just  as  they  drew  their  stars  from  the  heap, 
In  came  the  Coyote  with  a  big  leap. 

"  Why  are  you  wasting  your  time  ?  "  cried  he. 
"  What  good  is  in  all  this  embroidery  ? " 

And  he  kicked  the  whole  pile  of  stars  away, 
Before  the  old  men  knew  what  to  say. 
And  those  stars  lie  scattered  until  this  clay  ; 
O,  naughty,  naughty  Coyote  ! 


A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE.  5 

Why  does  the  Bat  shut  his  eyes  so  tight, 

Or  open  them  only  a  crack  to  the  light  ? 

'Twas  the  work  of  naughty  Coyote. 

For  once  the  poor  Bat  had  very  good  eyes, 
But  he  lost  their  use,  to  his  great  surprise. 
Coyote  and  Bat  were  among  the  pine-trees, 
When  what  did  Coyote  do  but  just  seize 
A  handful  of  pitch,  and,  quick  as  a  flash, 
Clap  it  all  on  the  poor  Bat's  eyes  at  a  dash ! 

And  the  Bat,  in  his  blindness,  cried,  "  What  shall  I  do  ? " 
But  the  wind  had  mercy,  and  blew,  and  blew, 
Till  the  Bat's  eyes  opened  a  crack  or  more ; 
But  he  never  can  open  them  wide  as  before. 
O,  naughty,  naughty  Coyote  ! 

The  California  Indians  tell  other  queer  stories 
about  the  Coyote.  The  Indians  believe  that  he  is 
very  smart,  and  some  of  them  tell  a  story  about  the 
way  he  came  to  have  such  wisdom.  Of  course  it  is 
not  a  true  story,  any  more  than  the  one  about  the 
stars.  The  Indians  say  that  once,  at  the  beginning 
of  creation,  after  all  the  animals  had  been  made,  a 
day  was  appointed  for  them  to  gather  together.  The 
first  man  was  going  to  give  them  each  a  bow,  and 
the  animal  that  should  receive  the  longest  bow  was 


6  A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 

forevermore  to  be  called  the  smartest  of  beasts.  The 
one  that  should  receive  the  bow  next  in  length  was 
to  be  next  to  the  first  animal  in  rank,  and  so  on. 

All  the  animals  had  been  told  about  this  arrange- 
ment. The  first  man  had  called  them  together,  and 
had  said  that  the  next  day  the  distribution  of  bows 
was  to  be  made.  The  Coyote  was  very  anxious  to 
get  the  longest  bow,  for  he  wished  to  be  always  called 
the  smartest  of  beasts.  So  he  thought  that  if  he 
staid  awake  all  night,  he  would  be  able  to  start  in  the 
morning  earlier  than  the  rest  of  the  animals,  and 
would  arrive  at  the  place  of  meeting  first,  and  get 
the  longest  bow. 

So  the  Coyote  tried  to  keep  awake  all  night. 
He  succeeded  pretty  well,  for  he  was  so  anxious 
that  he  could  not  have  slept  the  first  part  of  the  night. 
But  alas,  alas,  poor  fellow!  just  before  morning  the 
Coyote  forgot  himself  and  fell  soundly  asleep,  and  all 
the  other  animals  went  to  the  place  of  meeting;  and 
when  poor  Coyote  woke  and  ran  there  too,  he  found 
himself  the  last  of  all,  and  received  the  shortest  bow 
of  any. 


S/&il^  .:':•  -v:-iv'-;A^%/.^'SS^  KV'vj.':'"-'.*  >:£  •#&  .  y^- 


THE    HEN-KEEPERS    DO    NOT    LIKE    NEIGHBOR    COYOTE. 


A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE.  9 

Poor  Coyote  !  he  was  terribly  distressed,  and  no 
wonder.  It  would  be  dreadful  to  be  always  thought 
the  most  stupid  animal  on  earth.  Do  not  you 
think  so? 

But  the  story  goes  on  to  say  that  when  the  first 
man  heard  how  the  poor  Coyote  had  sat  up  all  night, 
and  had  only  just  missed  coming  in  first,  the  man 
took  pity  on  the  poor  fellow,  and  fixed  matters  so  that 
the  Coyote  should  be  considered  the  most  cunning 
of  animals. 

The  Indians  say  that  the  Coyote  was  so  thankful 
that  he  became  the  friend  of  all  the  man's  children, 
and  was  ready  to  do  many  kind  things  for  them.  But 
it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  the  Coyote  is  very  good 
to  folks  nowadays.  Coyotes  like  to  steal  chickens, 
I  know. 

There  is  another  story  told  by  the  Pallawonaps 
on  Kern  River,  in  the  southern  part  of  California. 
They  say  that  once  the  Coyote  wished  to  go  to  the 
sun,  and  he  asked  the  way. 

Some  one  pointed  out  to  him  the  road,  and  the 
Coyote  started.  But  the  sun  turned  around  before 


io  A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 

the  day  was  over,  and  so  the  Coyote  traveled  in  a 
circle,  and  came  back  at  night  to  the  place  where  he 
had  started  in  the  morning. 

Of  course  the  Coyote  was  not  to  be  beaten  that 
way,  so  the  next  day  he  started  again  for  the  sun. 
But,  sad  to  relate,  the  second  time  Coyote  traveled 
in  a  circle,  and  came  back  to  his  starting-point. 

So,  the  third  day,  he  was  advised  by  some  one  to 
go  early  in  the  morning  to  the  eastern  edge  of  the 
earth,  and  wait  there  till  the  sun  came  up. 

Coyote  started.  He  went  to  the  eastern  edge  of 
the  earth ;  and  then,  the  Indians  say,  he  sat  down  on 
the  hole  where  the  sun  came  up. 

By  and  by,  along  came  the  sun  up  the  hole,  and 
told  Coyote  to  get  out  of  the  way. 

But  Coyote  did  not  mind.  He  sat  there  till  his 
shoulders  began  to  be  so  warm  that  he  spat  on  his 
paws  and  began  rubbing  his  back. 

Then  that  impertinent  Coyote  said  to  the  sun, 
"  Why  do  you  come  up  here  meddling  with  me  ?  " 

But  the  sun  said,  "  I  am  not  meddling  with  you. 
I  am  traveling  where  I  have  a  right  to  travel." 


A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE.  11 

Then  the  Coyote  was  very  impolite,  and  told  the 
sun  to  go  around  some  other  way.  But  of  course  the 
sun  would  not  do  that,  for  the  road  belonged  to  him. 

So,  at  last,  the  Coyote  asked  if  he  might  go  up 
with  the  sun,  and  the  sun  was  so  good-natured  that 
he  took  him  along.  The  Indians  say  that  by  and  by 
the  sun  and  the  Coyote  came  to  a  path  with  steps  —  a 
sort  of  ladder;  and  when  they  both  came  above  the 
world  the  Coyote  was  so  hot  that  he  did  wish  he 
could  jump  down.  But  it  was  so  very  far  to  the  earth 
that  he  did  not  dare  to  do  it. 

At  noon  the  sun  was  so  bright  that  he  told  Coyote 
to  shut  his  eyes.  Coyote  obeyed,  but  all  that  after- 
noon he  kept  opening  and  shutting  his  eyes,  to  see 
» 

how  near  the  earth  was  coming.  And  when  the  sun 
came  to  the  west  part  of  the  world,  the  Coyote  caught 
hold  of  the  nearest  tree,  and  came  down  to  the  ground. 
But  however  much  the  Coyote  in  the  next  cage 
may  believe  this  story,  I  do  not  believe  it.  He  need 
not  boast  much  before  me  of  the  Coyote  that  took  a 
ride  on  the  sun.  I  should  not  think  it  much  honor 
to  have  had  an  ancestor  that  said  to  the  sun,  "  Why 


12  A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 

do  you  come  up  here  meddling  with  me?"  and  to 
have  had  the  sun  answer,  "  I  am  not  meddling  with 
you.  I  am  traveling  where  I  have  a  right  to  travel." 

Seems  to  me,  if  that  were  true,  it  would  show  that 
the  old  Coyote  did  not  have  very  good  manners. 

This  Coyote  neighbor  of  mine  says  that  there  is 
another  sun  story  that  the  Indians  tell  about  that 
former  Coyote.  In  the  first  place,  say  the  Shasta 
Indians,  the  sun  had  nine  brothers,  all  flaming  hot 
like  himself.  Ten  suns  in  all !  This  world  was  so 
hot  that  people  were  likely  to  die,  but  the  Coyote 
saved  them,  for  he  went  to  the  nine  brothers  and 
killed  them  all.  There  was  only  our  own  present 
sun  left. 

There  was  great  trouble,  too,  about  the  moon. 
The  moon  had  nine  brothers,  and  all  were  made  of 
the  coldest  ice,  so  that  at  night  people  nearly  froze. 
But  the  good  Coyote  took  a  tremendous  knife  of 
flint  stone,  went  to  the  eastern  edge  of  the  \vorld, 
heated  stones  to  keep  his  hands  warm,  and  there 
killed  the  nine  extra  moons,  so  that  people  were 


warm  again. 


A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE.  13 

Well,  that  Coyote  neighbor  of  mine  may  boast  all 
he  pleases  of  these  stories,  yet  he  cannot  deny  that 
all  hen-keepers  hate  his  folks,  in  the  country  where 
they  run  wild. 

Another  story  that  has  been  told  about  us  Hyenas 
is,  that  we  have  only  one  bone  apiece  in  our  necks. 
A  great  man  named  Aristotle  once  said  that  this  was 
so,  but  I  know  that  he  was  mistaken,  for  how  could 
I  turn  my  head,  if  my  neck  were  one  jointless  bone  ? 
There  was  believed  to  be  a  very  mysterious  power  in 
this  neck-bone  of  the  Hyena,  and  even  now  it  is  said 
that  the  Arabs,  whenever  they  kill  a  Hyena,  hide  its- 
head  by  burying  it  somewhere,  for  fear  that  the  head 
should  avenge  the  death  of  the  animal. 

But  there  is  one  thing  that  I  can  really  do.  I  can 
laugh.  It  is  a  rather  queer  laugh,  I  suppose,  but  it 
is  a  better  laugh  than  most  animals  can  make.  If 
you  are  around  here  when  the  keeper  gives  me  my 
dinner,  you  will  hear  me  laugh  over  it.  I  am  a  great 
deal  smarter  than  that  old  fellow  hanging  on  that 
tree.  He  is  a  Sloth,  and  I  do  think  that  he  is  the 
most  stupid  creature  that  I  ever  saw.  He  hardly 


A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 


stirs,  but  just  hangs  there.  I  should  think  that  he 
would  want  to  come  down  to  the  ground  sometimes, 
but  he  never  seems  to,  and  I  have  heard  of  a  farmer 
in  South  America  who  told  a  traveler  that  a  family 
of  black  Tardos,  or  Sloths,  had  lived  in  a  clump  of 

shade-trees  behind 
the  farmhouse  for 
eleven  years,  and  in 
all  that  time  the 
creatures  had  never 
been  seen  on  the 
ground.  A  Sloth 
would  pass  weeks  on 
the  same  branch. 

Sloths  do  come 
down  to  the  ground  sometimes,  however,  for  another 
traveler  in  South  America  once  saw  a  Sloth  swim- 
ming across  a  river.  I  think  that  Sloths  must  be  very 
stupid,  though,  usually,  for  I  heard  of  a  hotel  keeper 
who  owned  a  Sloth  for  six  years,  but  although  the 
same  person  fed  him  every,  day,  yet  that  Sloth  never 
seemed  to  know  his  feeder  from  any  other  person. 


.  V 

THE   SLOTH  THAT   HUNG   ON    THE  TREE. 


A    CRY  FROM  A    MENAGERIE.  15 

Once,  too,  a  naturalist  bought  a  pair  of  black 
Tardos,  and  tried  experiments  on  them  to  see  if  they 
could  not  be  scared  into  moving  quickly.  But  though 
he  let  a  fierce-looking  dog  go  near  one  of  them,  yet 
the  Sloth  was  not  at  all  frightened.  A  meat-axe  sud- 
denly chopped  down  near  the  nose  of  one  of  the 
Sloths  did  not  scare  her,  neither  was  the  other  Sloth 
frightened  when  his  straw  bed  accidentally  took  fire. 
War-whoops,  and  French-horn  blasts,  and  detonating 
powder  did  not  make  this  Sloth  budge,  and  when  a 
visitor  let  off  some  fireworks  of  wonderful  colors  and 
smells,  the  Sloth  was  not  made  to  wonder. 

Once  a  naturalist  kept  a  Sloth  for  several  months 
to  observe  his  habits,  and  this  naturalist  used  often  to 
take  the  Sloth  out  of  the  house  and  put  him  on  the 
ground,  to  see  him  try  to  walk.  If  the  ground  was 
rough,  the  Sloth  could  catch  hold  and  pull  himself 
along  very  well,  but  if  the  naturalist  put  the  poor 
fellow  down  in  a  smooth  place,  then  the  Sloth  was 
in  great  trouble,  for  there  was  nothing  to  hold  to. 
When  the  Sloth  was  in  the  house  he  generally  hung 
on  the  back  of  a  chair.  He  would  manage  to  put  all 


i6 


A    CRY  FROM  A    MENAGERIE. 


four  feet  in  a  line  on  the  top  of  the  chair,  and  there 
the  Sloth  would  hang  for  hours. 

The  South  American  Indians  have  a  saying, 
"When  the  wind  blows,  the  Sloths  begin  to  crawl." 
And  that  saying  is  very  true,  for,  of  course,  when  the 
wind  blows  the  branches  of  the  trees  hit  against  one 

another,  and  so  any 
Sloth  that  is  tired 
of  his  tree  can 
catch  hold  of  the 
next  one  and  go 

•:.-  over  to  that. 

'•'••'•       \ 

Oh !    isn't    that 

the  keeper  coming 
with  something  to 
eat?  I  am  sure  it 
must  be,  for  old 
Sam  is  beginning 

to  climb.  Old  Sam  is  that  bear  in  the  bear-pit  yonder. 
He  knows  that  he  will  not  get  any  meat  unless  he 
climbs  the  pole,  and  he  is  half-way  up  already.  The 
keeper  is  fastening  a  big  piece  of  meat  to  a  hook 


OLD   SAM   CLIMBS   FOR   HIS   DINNER. 


A    CRY  FROM  A   MENAGERIE.  17 

hanging  from  a  rope.  Very  soon  he  will  pull  the 
rope,  and  the  meat  will  go  straight  up  to  the  top  of 
the  pole.  Then  old  Sam  will  be  there,  and  take  the 
meat  off  the  hook,  and  eat  his  dinner. 

That  other  bear  will  not  climb  for  his  dinner. 
His  name  is  Ben,  and  all  he  will  do  is  sit  upon  his 
hind  legs  and  beg.  But  the  keeper  will  not  give 
him  anything,  because  Ben  is  a  bad  bear  to-day. 


A   BEREFT    NEIGHBOR'S   LAMENT. 


"NEIGHBOR  HAIRY-SKIN." 


You  must  excuse  me 
if  I  speak  in  an  agitated 
manner.  Such  a  thing 
as  has  occurred !  Here 
Neighbor  Smooth-skin  was  this  morning  on  a  leaf  near 
me,  and  now,  oh!  where  is  she?  In  the  dark,  dark 
ground. 

It  was  all  so  sudden. 

It  had  been  quite  warm  to-day,  and  Neighbor 
Smooth-skin  was  under  the  shade  of  the  white  gera- 
nium. I  did  not  care  to  eat  very  much,  and  I  was 
resting  on  the  whitewashed  fence  near  the  ground, 
not  very  far  from  my  neighbor.  All  the  world  seemed 
very  peaceful  to  us  two  caterpillars. 

"  I  feel  very  lazy,  Neighbor  Smooth-skin,"  I  said. 

18 


A   BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT.  19 

"  So  do  I,  Neighbor  Hairy-skin,"  said  she,  stirring 
a  little  on  the  geranium  leaf. 

"Where  does  that  creaking  come  from?"  I  asked. 

Neighbor  Smooth-skin  turned  her  head. 

"  It  comes   from  over  toward  the   apple-tree,"  she 
said.     "  I   declare  !     Do  you  see 
that  person  ?     How  can  she  dig 
in  weather  so  hot  as  this  is  ?  " 

There  was  a  bluish-black  per- 
son digging,  surely  enough.    She 

made     SOme     noise     OVer     it,    tOO.  AMMOPHILA  GRYPHUS. 

Creak !  creak !  came  from  her  direction.  The  sound 
was  the  rubbing  of  her  joints  together  as  she  dug,  I 
suppose. 

"  What  do  you  think  she  is  digging  that  hole  for?" 
asked  Neighbor  Smooth-skin. 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  I.  "  She  does  not  look  to  me 
like  the  sort  of  person  I  should  like  to  ask  a  reason  of 
for  her  doings.  She  is  very  business-like.  I  should 
be  afraid  of  her." 

The  bluish-black  person  dug  hastily.  By  and  by 
her  hole  was  so  deep  that  she  went  in  out  of  sight. 


20  A   BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT. 

She  kept  coming  out,  though,  with  the  earth,  bringing 
it  in  her  jaws  or  under  her  chin,  and  kicking  the  earth 
back  into  a  little  pile  behind  her  .on  the  ground. 

"  How  she  does  dig !  "  whispered  Neighbor  Smooth- 
skin.  "  What  do  you  suppose  she  is  trying  to  find  ? 
Can  there  be  anything  down  that  hole  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  know,"  I  said.  "  Oh !  I  have  seen  her 
before.  She  is  that  queer  person  that  came  around 
one  day  getting  her  dinner  from  the  pink  flowers  of  the 
dew-plant  over  next  the  fence.  She  told  me  then  that 
she  liked  the  juice  of  the  dew-plant  flowers,  it  was  so 
refreshing  after  digging.  I  had  forgotten  all  about 
her.  She  told  me,  that  day,  her  name.  Let's  see. 
What  was  it  ?  Am  -  -  Am  -  -  why,  what  was  it  ? 

4 

Ammophila!  That's  it.  She  told  me  it  means  '  sand- 
lover,'  because  her  folks  like  to  dig  in  the  sand." 

"That  shows  they're  lazy,"  replied  Neighbor 
Smooth-skin.  "  It's  easier  to  dig  in  sand  than  in 
anything  else,  I  have  been  told.  It  must  be,  I  know." 

"  But  I  shouldn't  think  lazy  people  would  like  to 
dig  anywhere,"  I  objected.  "  I  should  think"  — 

But  I  really  do  not  know  what  I  was  going  to  say, 


A   BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT.  21 

for  just  then  an  awful  thing  happened.  The  bluish- 
black  person,  Mrs.  Ammophila,  suddenly  rushed  out  of 
her  hole  and  ran  to  a  squash-vine.  She  hurried  around 
beneath  the  leaves.  There  were  a  good  many  little 
green  aphides  on  the  under  side  of  the  leaves,  but  she 
did  not  seem  to  look  at  the  small  creatures.  She  r»an 
directly  from  the  squash-vine  to  the  geranium,  caught 
up  Neighbor  Smooth-skin  before  my  astonished  eyes, 
and  hurried  with  her  toward  the  hole. 

"  Stop!  stop!"  I  cried.  "  What  are  you  going  to 
do  ?  That  is  my  dear  Neighbor  Smooth-skin.  Don't 
you  dare  put  her  in  that  hole!" 

But  Mrs.  Ammophila  never  answered  a  word.  She 
only  kept  right  on.  As  for  Neighbor  Smooth-skin, 
she  did  not  struggle  at  all,  I  think.  Mrs.  Ammophila 
had  given  her  a  stab  that  seemed  to  paralyze  her. 

Mrs.  Ammophila  ran  with  her  to  the  hole,  sprang 
into  it,  turned  around,  grabbed  Neighbor  Smooth-skin, 
and  pulled  her  in. 

"  Stop  !  stop  !  "  I  cried  again.  "  Why,  you  are  bury- 
ing Neighbor  Smooth-skin  before  she  is  dead.  It  is 
horrible.  Do  stop,  you  wicked  thing  !  " 


22  A    BEREFT  NEIGHBORS  LAMENT. 

And  then  I  thought  to  myself  that  perhaps,  after 
my  poor  neighbor  was  buried,  that  terrible  Mrs.  Am- 
mophila  might  come  back  after  me.  The  thought 
filled  me  with  horror.  I  tumbled  to  the  ground,  and 
curled  up  in  a  little  hole  under  the  fence. 

"  I'll  stay  here  and  hide,"  I  said.  "  O,  poor,  poor 
Mrs.  Smooth-skin  !  To  be  buried  that  way  !  " 

I  peeped  out  of  my  crack.  Part  of  Neighbor 
Smooth-skin's  body  still  stood  out  above  the  ground, 
but  Mrs.  Ammophila  struggled  up  and  came  in  sight 
once  more.  She  pushed  the  body  in,  and  rushed  at 
bits  of  earth,  and  poked  them  into  the  hole.  She 
hauled  on  dirt.  Alas !  alas !  Neighbor  Smooth-skin 
was  entirely  buried.  I  should  never  see  her  again. 
Mrs.  Ammophila  had  covered  her  completely. 

"  Well,  if  there  is  any  more  burying  to  be  done, 
there  will  have  to  be  another  hole  dug  first,"  I  thought. 
"  I'll  crawl  away  while  she's  digging.  Oh  !  if  Neigh- 
bor Smooth-skin  had  only  known  enough  to  crawl 
away  beforehand." 

But,  that  minute,  Mrs.  Ammophila  suddenly  flew 
away. 


A   BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT.  23 

I  waited.     She  did  not  come  back. 

"  She  didn't  want  me  because  I  am  hairy,"  I  con- 
cluded. "  My  long  tufts  of  hair  would  have  partly 
protected  me  from  the  stab.  Mrs.  Ammophila  could 
not  have  given  it  with  certainty,  as  she  could  to  a 
smooth-skinned  caterpillar ;  and  if  I  were  not  stabbed, 
you  had  better  believe  I  would  wriggle  so  that  Mrs. 
Ammophila  would  have  a  very  hard  time  carrying  me 
to  the  tomb." 

I  knew  why  she  had  buried  my  neighbor.  You 
see,  I  had  heard  stories  of  such  things  before,  but  I 
had  not  recognized  Mrs.  Ammophila  as  being  one  of 
the  murderers,  that  is  all.  Such  creatures  as  she  bury 
other  insects,  putting  an  egg  by  them  so  that,  when 
the  egg  is  hatched,  the  little  grub  that  comes  from  it 
may  find  something  to  eat.  Mrs."  Ammophila's  grub 
will  feed  on  my  poor  Neighbor  Smooth-skin,  who  hon- 
estly intended  to  become  a  moth. 

Mrs.  Ammophila  tries  to  be  very  fine  now,  going 
around  daintily  sipping  the  juice  of  pink  or  blue 
flowers,  but  she  must  have  spent  her  childhood  under- 
ground in  a  hole,  eating  a  poor,  paralyzed  caterpillar. 


24  A   BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT. 

I   suppose  she    might    not   like   to   have  such   a  fact 
referred  to  now,  but  it  is  true,  any  way. 

I  know  of  a  good  many  other  murders  that  have 
been  committed  in  this  yard.  There  are  some  creatures 
here  called  Oxybelus  that  pounce  on  flies  and  bury 
them  in  holes  in  the  ground,  the  way  poor  Neighbor 
Smooth-skin  was  buried.  Why,  sometimes  one  of 
those  fly-killers  will  bury  as  many  as  seven  flies  in  one 
hole!  The  flies  are  light  enough,  so  that  Mrs.  Fly- 
killer  can  carry  them  through  the  air,  one  at  a  time. 
Mrs.  Fly-killer  will  come  sailing  along,  holding  a  poor 
fly  that  seems  as  quiet  as  if  it  were  dead,  and  will 
plunge  into  the  somewhat  sandy  place  where  she  has 
dug  her  burrow,  leave  the  fly  below  ground,  and  let 
her  hole  stay  covered  up  every  time  she  goes  off  after 
another  fly.  I  supp'ose  she  is  afraid  to  leave  the  bur- 
row open,  for  fear  something  should  go  in  there  while 
she  is  away.  Mrs.  Fly-killer  is  about  the  size  of  a  fly 
herself,  and  is  black.  She  has  to  carry  the  fly  by  her 
hind  feet,  because  she  has  to  use  her  fore  ones  in  open- 
ing her  burrow.  She  is  very  lively,  and  hops  around 
a  good  deal.  I  should  think  she  was  nervous. 


A   BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT.  25 

There  is  another  little  creature  that  comes  around 
here  and  catches  spiders,  and  buries  them  in  holes  in 
the  ground.  I  saw  one  of  these  spider-killers  dragging 
a  red  jumping-spider  over  the  ground  the  other  day. 
The  spider-killer  was  hurrying  him  toward  a  little  hole 
she  had  dug.  The  spider  was  perfectly  quiet,  and  let 
her  do  anything  she  pleased  with  him.  He  had  been 
stabbed,  I  suppose,  and  was  to  furnish  a  living  for  one 
of  Mrs.  Spider-killer's  children.  That  poor  spider  lies 
buried  by  that  leaf  at  the  foot  of  that  weed.  You  never 
would  know  by  the  looks  of  the  ground  that  anything 
was  underneath.  The  spider-killer  did  not  fly  with  the 
red  spider.  She  only  hauled  him  along  as  fast  as  she 
could.  I  have  heard  that  there  is  an  old  saying : 

"  If  you  wish  to  live  and  thrive, 
Let  a  spider  run  alive." 

But  Mrs.  Spider-killer  does  not  care  anything  about 
old  sayings.  Her  business  in  life  is  to  make  war  with 
spiders,  and  see  that  they  go  underground  properly. 
She  must  be  more  brave  than  Mrs.  Fly-killer  or 
Mrs.  Caterpillar-killer,  for  neither  the  flies  nor  the 


26  A   BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT. 

caterpillars  can  do  any  harm  to  their  murderers ;  but 
if  the  spider  should  bite  Mrs.  Spider-killer  in  the  con- 
test, I  am  afraid  she  would  come  to  grief,  instead  of 
the  spider  she  meant  to  bury. 

I  do  not  know  whether  the  spider-killers  of  this 
yard  ever  pounce  on  spiders  that  are  in  their  webs,  but 
I  have  heard  that  there  is  in  France  an  insect  called 
Pelopaeus,  that  dares  do  so.  It  does  not  seem  afraid, 
but  rather  enjoys  the  fight.  The  Pelopaeus  has  a  very 
strong  sting,  and  if  that  once  touches  the  spider  the 
poor  fellow  is  doomed.  Folks  say  that  the  Pelopaeus  is 
very  prudent,  and  flies  so  carefully  about  the  web  that 
the  spider  is  stung  before  he  can  do  anything.  But  if 
the  spider  is  ready,  sometimes  the  Pelopaeus  feels  some 
threads  thrown  around  her,  and  the  spider  winds 
her  up  and  kills  her.  This  seldom  happens,  though. 
That  Pelopaeus  will  manage  to  carry  two  or  three 
spiders  to  her  nest,  sometimes. 

You  may  wonder  how  I  know  all  this,  but  that 
spider  up  in  the  apple-tree  told  me  about  it.  That 
spider  says  she  is  not  going  to  be  buried,  if  she  can 
help  it. 


A   BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT.  27 

"  That  Pelopaeus  in  France  does  not  bury  spiders 
in  the  ground,"  said  she;  "  she  puts  them  into  a  nest 
of  clay  and  then  seals  the  nest.  But  no  spider-killer 
is  going  to  catch  me.  I'm  going  to  keep  wide  awake. 
Do  you  suppose  I  want  to  be  paralyzed,  and  poked 
into  a  hole  and  kept  for  food  for  Mrs.  Spider-killer's 
child?  Indeed,  I  don't !  Why,  do  you  know,  down  in 
Texas  there  is  a  kind  of  insect  called  the  Tarantula- 
killer,  because  it  carries  off  and  buries  the  big  spider 
that  is  called  the  "  tarantula,"  but  is  not  one  really. 
That  great  spider  is  buried  several  inches  under- 
ground. It's  dreadful  the  way  that  Pompilus  does." 

"  That  what  ?  "  I  questioned. 

"  Pompilus,"  said  the  apple-tree  spider.  "  The  Tar- 
antula-killer's real  name  is  Pompilus  fonnosus.  It's 
most  as  long  a  name  as  my  spider-web,  isn't  it? 
There  are  other  insects  that  have  Pompilus  for  a  name, 
too.  There  is  one  called  Pompilus  tropicus,  that 
wears  a  red  band.  What  do  you  suppose  '  Pompilus' 
means  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  I'm  sure,"  I  answered. 

It  always  makes  me  feel  very  ignorant  when  I  hear 


28 


A    BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT. 


THE    "TARANTULA-KILLER." 


that   apple-tree  spider   talking.     She  knows  so  much 
more    than    I    know.     And    she    talks    so    easily,  too. 

"  Pompilus  is  a  name 
that  comes  from  a 
\vorci  meaning  an  '  es- 
cort, '  explained  the 
apple-tree  spider,  "  but 
I  don't  want  any  such 
escort  to  the  grave  as 
that.  Do  you  ?  " 

"  O,  no,  no,  in- 
deed ! "  I  cried.  "  Poor  Neighbor  Smooth-skin !  I 
am  so  sorry  such  a  thing 
happened  to  her  !  Were  any 
of  your  neighbors  or  relatives 
ever  buried  that  way?" 

"  Plenty  of  them,"  re- 
sponded the  apple-tree  spider 
grimly;  "plenty  of  them. 
Why,  the  spider-killers  got 
my  mother,  two  of  my  cousins,  my  aunt,  and  my  - 
Whew!  There  is  one  of  those  spider-killers  now!" 


POMPILUS    TROPICUS. 


A   BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT.  29 

The  apple-tree  spider  hid  under  a  piece  of  bark, 
and  our  conversation  was  at  an  end ;  but  I  mean  to  be 
just  as  careful  as  she  is,  and  keep  away  from  Mrs. 
Ammophila  and  all  her  tribe.  We  caterpillars  and 
flies  and  spiders  need  to  exercise  a  great  deal  of  cau- 
tion in  this  back  yard,  or  we  shall  come  to  a  dreadful 
end,  some  of  us. 

You  see,  besides  the  enemies  that  want  to  bury 
us,  there  are  some  that  want  to  kill  us  another 
way.  They  are  the  Ichneumon  folks. 
They  will  come  along  and  stab  one, 
putting  an  egg  either  outside  or  in- 
side a  caterpillar,  and  that  caterpillar, 
instead  of  being  dragged  off  to  be 

1-1  -it  1-       •  J  1-  ICHNEUMON    SUTURALIS. 

buried,  will  go  on  living  and  crawling 
about;  but  the  ichneumon's  egg  will  hatch,  and  the 
grub  will  be  eating  the  caterpillar  all  the  time,  and 
when  the  caterpillar  is  exhausted  it  dies,  and  the  new 
ichneumon  comes  out  all  right.  That  is  about  as  bad 
as  being  buried,  I  think,  because  perhaps  the  buried 
caterpillar,  being  paralyzed,  does  not  feel  Mrs.  Am- 
mophila's  grub  eating,  but  I  am  afraid  the  caterpillar 


A   BEREFT  NEIGHBOR'S  LAMENT. 


that  is  not  buried  does  feel  Mrs.  Ichneumon's  grub, 
perhaps.  Any  way  I  do  not  want  to  try  the  experi- 
ment. Why,  there  is  one  kind  of  ichneumon  that  is 
so  small  that  its  grub  can  live  inside  a  plant-louse,  or 

Aphis.  Sometimes  I  see  a 
dead  Aphis  all  puffed  out  and 
turned  black,  and  I  know  what 
is  the  matter.  The  little  ich- 
neumon is  inside.  Its  name  is 
Aphidius,  and  it  has  killed  the 
Aphis.  I  don't  want  any  crea- 
ture living  inside  me.  I  do 
want  to  live  till  I  turn  into  a 


APHIDIUS    TKITICAPHIS. 


moth  and  have  wings. 


Wings ! 


Won't  that  be  fine! 
I  am  going  to  eat  as  fast  as  I  can,  so  as  to  grow  as 
quickly  as  possible.  That  will  be  hurrying  toward 
being  a  moth. 


A  .BLUE-JAY'S    JABBERINGS. 

QUEE  !  Did  you  hear  me  scolding  just  now? 
We  blue-jays  scold  a  great  deal,  you  know,  any  way, 
for  somehow  there  is  always  enough  to  scold  about  if 
one  only  gets  into  the  habit  of  it.  But  the  thing  that 
I  have  been  scolding  about  now  is  something  new. 
The  Buddhists,  I  have  just  heard,  have  been  telling 
something  about  us  blue-jays — something  that  is  not 
true.  I  should  like  to  know  how  long  such  a  story 
has  been  going  around.  A  great  many  years,  I  dare 
say.  Men  do  not  know  very  much  about  us  birds. 
The  Buddhists  say  this:  "There  are  four  kinds  of 
beings  who  fear  when  there  is  no  danger,"  and  among 
the  four  they  mention  "  the  bird  kirala,  or  the  blue-jay, 
that  hatches  its  eggs  with  its  feet  upward,  that,  if  the 
sky  should  fall,  it  may  be  ready  to  support  it." 

31 


A   BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS. 


Now,  did  you  ever  hear  such  nonsense  as  that 
about  a  bird?  Do  you  suppose  that  I  am  so  silly  as 
to  hatch  my  eggs  with  my  feet  upward  ?  I  am  not  a 
bit  more  afraid  that  the  sky  will  fall  than  you  are,  and 
I  should  like  to  tell  those  ridiculous  Buddhists  that 
they  had  better  find  some  blue-jays  and  observe  their 
habits,  before  telling  any  more  such  stories  as  that. 
Do  you  wonder  that  I  scold  ? 

However,  I   have  company  in  my  affliction,  for  the 

Buddhists  go  on  to  say 
that  another  of  the 
"  beings  who  fear  when 
there  is  no  danger  "  is 
the  bird  "  kos  likiniya, 
the  curlew,  that  treads 
with  all  gentleness  lest 
it  should  shake  the 
earth." 

Now  I  am  not  very 
well  acquainted  with 
Mr.  Curlew,  but  I  am  going  to  ask  him,  the  very 
next  time  I  see  him,  if  that  is  not  a  story,  too.  I  am 


A   BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS.  33 

sure  he  is  not  afraid  of  shaking  the  earth.  The  only 
thing  that  he  is  afraid  of  is,  that  he  will  not  find 
worms  and  mollusks  enough  for  his  dinner. 

If  people  could  understand  all  that  we  birds  say, 
folks  might  not  be  very  much  pleased  with  our  re- 
marks, always.  The  Jewish  rabbis  used  to  say  that 
Solomon  could  understand  all  that  the  birds  sang,  and 
he  would  amuse  himself  with  listening  to  the  wise 
remarks  that  were  made  in  bird-language.  And  this  is 
what  the  rabbis  said  that  Solomon  heard  the  peacock 
say:  "With  what  measure  thou  judgest  others,  thou 
shalt  thyself  be  judged."  What  they  said  the  raven 
croaked  was,  "  The  farther  from  man  the  happier  I." 

But  I  do  not  believe  that  Solomon  ever  knew  bird- 
talk,  and  I  am  sure  that  I  have  heard  the  peacock  and 
the  raven  say  much  more  silly  things  than  those. 

In  Scotland,  some  of  the  people  pretend  to  know 
what  a  bird  called  the  Black-throated  Diver  says. 
The  people  say  the  bird's  words  are,  "  Deoch  !  deoch  ! 
deoch !  tha'n  loch  a  traoghadh ! "  which  means  in 
your  language,  "  Drink  !  drink !  drink !  the  lake  is 
nearly  dried  up  !  " 


34 


A   BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS. 


The  relative  of  the  Black-throated  Diver,  called  the 
Red-throated    Diver,    has    a   very   strange,    loud    cry, 

which  sounds  like  a 
drowning  person  scream- 
ing for  help,  and  it  is 
very  startling  to  people 
who  are  out  on  the  water 
just  about  dark,  to  hear 
such  a  cry  near  them. 

Did  you  know  that 
one  of  the  pyramids  of 
Egypt,  called  Sakkara, 
used  to  be  sacred  to  a 


THE   BLACK-THROATED   DIVER. 


bird?  The  bird's  name  is  the  Ibis.  The  Arabs  now 
believe  that  bird  to  be  sacred,  and  a  naturalist  who 
visited  Egypt  said  that  if  he  or  any  other  naturalist 
should  take  an  egg  or  two  from  an  ibis,  or  should  kill 
a  bird  of  that  sort  for  scientific  purposes,  the  Arabs 
believe  that  a  curse  would  come  as  a  punishment.  In 
fact,  when  this  naturalist  did  anything  of  that  sort,  his 
Arab  servants  used  to  call  down  curses  on  his  head, 
and  used  to  tell  him  that  trouble  would  be  sure  to 


•RT  TTW-TAVf?. 


A   BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS. 


37 


overtake  him.  The  naturalist  said  that  he  never 
abused  his  Arab  servants  in  return,  for  he  saw  that 
they  really  believed  what  they  said.  Indeed,  at  last, 
the  naturalist  really  became  quite  nervous  about  the 
superstition,  in  spite  of  himself. 

The  sacred  Ibis  used  to  be  preserved  by  the  Egyp- 
tians, and  kept  for  hundreds  of  years  after  its  death, 


VIEW   OF   THE    PYRAMIDS. 


for  the  people  thought  that  sometime  the  spirit  of  the 
bird  would  come  back  to  its  body.  Of  course  that 
was  a  verv  foolish  idea.  But,  as  I  think,  people  have 
a  great  many  odd  notions  about  birds. 


A   BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS. 


THE   SACRED    IBIS. 


Another  bird  that   some   English   folks   believe  a 
queer  thing  about,  is  a  relative  of    mine,  the   Raven. 

You  know  that  there  is 
half-supposed  to  have 
been,  hundreds  of  years 
ago,  an  English  king 
named  Arthur,  and 
many  interesting  old 
legends  are  told  about 
him.  Well,  some  of  the 
people  who  live  in  Corn- 
wall, England,  think  that  King  Arthur  is  still  alive  in 
the  form  of  a  raven,  and  some  of  the  superstitious 
people  will  not  shoot  such  birds,  for  fear  of  killing  the 
king.  All  of  this  is  nonsense,  of  course.  The  souls 
of  people  who  die  never  come  back  to  this  world  as 
birds.  Still  it  is  very  helpful  to  us  birds  to  have 
some  notion  abroad  that  will  keep  people  from  kill- 
ing us.  I  wish  boys  would  believe  something  that 
would  keep  them  from  killing  blue-jays. 

Neighbor  Pigeon  told  me  a  story  about  his  folks, 
the   other   day.       He    says  that    a    pigeon    wras    used 


A   BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS. 


39 


once  in  deceiving  people.  A  man  named  Mohammed, 
wished  to  make  the  Arabs  believe  that  he  was  a  prophet 
and  received 
messages  from 
Heaven.  So  Mo- 
hammed taught 
a  pigeon  to  pick 
seeds  out  of  his 
ear,  and  w  hen 
ignorant  people 
saw  the  bird  do- 


THF.    BKRNICLE-GOOSE. 


ing  this,  they  thought  that  it  was  telling  Mohammed 
some  news  from  Heaven.  I  think  it  was  wicked  in 
Mohammed  to  cheat  people  so,  don't  you  ?  But  Neigh- 
bor Pigeon  says  that  he  does  not  think  his  relative 
was  to  blame  for  eating"  the  seeds  out  of  the  man's  ear. 

o 

I  hear  queer  things  sometimes  from  Neighbor 
Goose  of  the  next  yard.  She  was  out  walking  yes- 
terday, and  she  told  me  a  thing  that  used  to  be 
believed  about  the  Bernicle-goose.  She  said  that  it 
used  to  be  thought  that  that  bird  came  from  a  bar- 
nacle, a  little  shell-like  being  that  lives  on  the  rocks  by 


4o 


A   BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS. 


the  sea.  One  kind  of  barnacle  now  has  a  name  that 
means  "  the  five-plated  goose-bearer."  An  old  writer 
named  Gerarde,  tells  how  it  was  thought  that  the 
goose  came  out  of  the  shell  of  the  barnacle.  He  said: 
•"  When  it  is  perfectly  formed  the  shell  gapeth  open, 
and  the  first  thing  that  appeareth  is  the  aforesaid  lace 

or  string ;  next 
come  the  legs  of 
the  bird  hanging 
out,  and  as  it 
groweth  greater, 
it  openeth  the 
shell  by  degrees, 
till  at  length  it 
is  all  come  forth  and  hangeth  only  by  the  bill:  in 
short  space  after,  it  cometh  to  full  maturitie,  and  fall- 
eth  into  the  sea,  where  it  gathereth  feathers,  and 
groweth  to  a  fowle." 

Neighbor  Goose  was  quite  exasperated  at  such  a 
story,  for  of  course  the  geese  all  come  from  eggs,  and 
not  from  such  sea-things  as  barnacles ;  and  Neighbor 
Goose  says  she  should  like  to  see  any  gosling  growing 


BARNACLES. 


A    BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS.  41 

"  to  be  a  fowle  "  by  falling  into  the  sea  after  hanging 
a  while  by  the  bill. 

Neighbor  Goose  told  me  another  queer  thing,  too, 
and  that  was  about  the  salaries  of  ministers  in  Eng- 
land, long  ago.  She 
said  that  sometimes  an 
addition  used  to  be 
made  to  the  salary  by 
allowing  the  minister  to 
have  what  was  called  J 
"goose-grass;"  that  is, 
he  was  given  the  right  to  let  his  geese  run  on  the 
Common. 

Neighbor  Goose  said,  too,  that  another  relative  of 
hers,  the  swan,  was  thought  once  to  be  a  royal  bird  in 
England,  and  no  subject  could  own  a  swan  excepting 
such  persons  as  had  received  a  "  swan-mark." 

The  king  used  to  have  a  swan-herd  who  looked 
after  the  swans  on  the  river  Thames,  and  in  other 
parts  of  England,  and  if  any  one  were  found  stealing 
swans'  eggs,  he  was  punished  by  being  put  in  prison, 
sometimes  for  a  year. 


42  A   BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS. 

Neighbor  Swallow,  who  comes  past  here  occasion- 
ally, says  that  long  ago  there  was  a  bishop  in  Norway 
whose  name  was  Pontoppidan -- which  was  a  dreadful 
name,  I  think  —  and  Pontoppidan  said  that  some  fisher- 
men told  him  that  they  often  drew  up  great  bunches 
of  swallows  from  the  bottom  of  the  lakes,  where 
the  birds  had  hidden  during  the  winter.  Whether  the 
Bishop  Pontoppidan  believed  what  the  fishermen  told 
him  or  not,  I  do  not  know,  but,  any  way,  after  that 
notion  was  started  by  him  a  great  many  people  did 
believe  it.  And  the  story  spread  so  widely,  that  at 
last,  in  Germany,  a  reward  was  offered  to  any  one  who 
would  bring  a  swallow  that  had  really  been  found 
under  water.  The  reward  was  to  be  an  amount  of 
silver  equal  in  weight  to  the  bird  brought,  but  no  one 
ever  appeared  to  claim  the  silver.  And  no  wonder! 
Swallows  did  not  winter  in  mud  then,  any  more  than 
they  do  now. 

But  people  have  not  been  contented  with  telling 
untrue  things  about  real  birds.  There  was  an  old 
story  about  a  bird  that  never  lived  at  all.  This  bird's 
name  was  the  "  phoenix."  A  man  who  lived  long  ago, 


A   BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS,  43 

i 
and   whose    name   was    Herodotus,   wrote    about   this 

bird.  He  said  that  he  had  seen  a  picture  of  it,  and 
that  the  people  of  Egypt  told  him  that  that  bird 
visited  them  once  in  five  hundred  years.  The  picture 
of  the  bird  made  it  look  like  an  eagle  with  yellow  and 
red  feathers  ;  and  the  story  was,  that  there  was  only 
one  phoenix  at  a  time,  and  when  that  bird  became  five 
hundred  years  old,  it  built  itself  a  nest  out  of  twigs  of 
cassia  and  frankincense,  and  in  this  the  phoenix  died. 
But  from  its  body  there  came  a  worm  that  turned  into 
another  phoenix,  that  took  the  body  of  the  old  one  and 
flew  with  it  to  the  city  of  Heliopolis,  where  the  body 
was  burned.  Some  people  said  that  the  phoenix  lived 
on  air  for  five  hundred  years,  and  was  then  burned  to 
ashes,  and  from  these  the  new  phoenix  arose.  Alto- 
gether, I  think  it  was  a  very  queer  story,  and  I  do  not 
believe  it  at  all.  Do  you  ? 

I  am  going  to  tell  you  one  thing  more,  and  then  I 
must  stop.  I  heard  it  the  other  day,  and  it  is  only 
another  proof  to  me  that  people  did  not  know  very 
much  about  us  birds  in  the  past,  as  I  believe  is  the 
case  now.  There  is  in  Europe  a  small  bird,  a  kind  of 


44  A    BLUE-JAY'S  JABBERINGS. 

woodpecker,  that  is  called  the  "  wry-neck,"  because  it 
moves  its  head  continually.  This  bird  is  easily  tamed, 
and  boys  sometimes  tie  a  string  to  its  leg  and  let 
the  bird  climb  over  trees.  The  bird  eats  ants  and 
caterpillars,  and  has  had  a  sad  history  on  account  of 
that  habit  of  twisting  the  head  all  the  time;  for  peo- 
ple in  old  days?  seeing  such  actions,  used  to  believe 
that  the  bird  had  some  magic  power.  So  the  folks 
would  take  the  poor  wry-neck  and  tie  it  to  a  wheel 
with  four  spokes,  which  would  be  whirled  around 
rapidly  while  certain  charms  were  chanted.  Wouldn't 
I  have  squawked,  if  I  had  been  treated  that  way  ! 
Why  couldn't  the  people  let  the  poor  "  wry-neck  "  bob 
its  head  in  peace  ? 


A   NUMBER   OF    HOMELY  PEOPLE. 


HOTINUS    MJBOCELLATUS. 


I  AM  a  stranger  to  you, 
but  please  do  not  be  afraid 
of  me.  I  am  a  Chinaman  - 
that  is,  I  mean  I  have  my 
home  in  China.  My  name  is 
queer,  too.  It  is  Hotinus 
Subocellatus,  and  wouldn't  it 
take  you  a  long  time  to  remember  such  a  name,  even 
if  it  were  your  own  ? 

But  besides  my  funny  shape  and  my  queer  name, 
there  is  another  very  strange  thing  about  me.  I  can 
shine  at  night  in  the  dark.  Once  a  man  was  in  Hong 
Kong,  China,  and  he  saw  some  boys  throwing  stones 
at  something  on  a  wall.  The  something  shone,  and 
the  man  put  up  his  cane  and  hooked  the  shining  thing 

45 


46 


A   NUMBER    OF  HOMELY  PEOPLE. 


down.     Then  he  took  it  into  the  house,  and  he  found 
that  it  was  a  Hotinus,  just  like  me. 

Well,  I  suppose  that  you  think  I  am  very  homely, 
so  I  will  tell  you  about  another  homely  person. 
There  is  a  very  strange  insect  that  lives  in  Brazil. 
Shouldn't  you  think  it  queer  if  you  saw  a  little  bit  of 
an  insect,  about  the  size  of  one  of  the  common  house 
flies,  but  with  a  sort  of  belfry  above  itself,  and  four 
round  knobs  on  the  belfry,  looking  like  the  little  bells 
that  people  used  to  fasten  on  hawks  ?  And  besides 
^* — ' "V_^~,  *ne  bells  there  is  a 

T*  VT^S   ^%    sort  of  spike  standing 

£        •bdLLSrHL         m         out   straight,   as  if  it 

were  the  bell-rope  in- 
viting you  to  ring. 
The  four  "  bells  "  are 
covered  with  long 
black  hairs.  The 
"  belfry  "  is  not  a  part 

of  the  head,  but  of  the  thorax,  or  the  middle  portion 

of  the  body. 

Another  Brazilian  insect  has  its  thorax  raised  up 


A  NUMBER    OF  HOMEL  Y  PEOPLE. 


47 


in  two  horns  and  lengthened  out  so  that  it  covers  the 
whole  upper  part  of  the  body. 

There  is  another  very  strange  insect  that  has  its 
thorax  fixed  in  somewhat  the  same  way,  only  instead 
of  making  a  belfry  and 
bells,  it  ends  in  two 
prongs  that*  look  like 
a  pair  of  sugar-tongs. 
This  insect  lives  in 
the  Philippine  Islands, 
and  I  should  think 
people  might  call  it 
the  "  s  u  g  a  r-t  o  n  g  s 
bearer." 

But  there  is  an  insect  in  Mexico  that  looks  more 
queer  than  most  others,  I  think.  It  is  green,  and 
wears  a  little  crest  of  yellow  hair  on  its  head,  and  on 
the  under  part  of  its  body  is  a  mass  of  white  down. 
A  man  who  once  saw  this  insect,  said  that  it  looked  as 
though  some  one  had  made  it  in  a  hurry  out  of  cotton- 
wool. Besides  the  cotton  beneath  the  body,  there  are 
long  fibers  that  trail  after  the  insect,  and  look  as  if 


48 


A   NUMBER  OF  HOMEL  Y  PEOPLE. 


they  were  made  of  cotton,  too.  If  I  were  in  that 
insect's  place  I  should  be  afraid  that  those  trailing 
pieces  of  cotton  would  be  caught  on  something,  but 
perhaps  if  they  did,  the  cotton  would  break  easily 
enough,  so  that  it  would  not  hinder  the  insect  much. 
The  insect's  name  is  Phenax  au ricoma ;  -  and  its  lat- 
ter name  means  "  golden-haired,"  on  account  of  the 
creature's  yellow  crest. 


A   SEA-ANEMONE'S    SIGHINGS. 


SMOOTH    ANEMONE    (CLOSED). 


I  AM  a  captive,  but  I 
was  not  always  one.  In 
my  youth  I  lived  on  the 
rocks  by  the  sea.  Many  a 
charming  little  puddle  was 
left  there  by  the  tide,  and 
the  live  things  in  the  puddle  did  taste  so  good  ! 

I  cannot  tell  you  how  many  sand-hoppers  I  had 
eaten  before  the  day  when  I  was  made  prisoner.  I  do 
not  get  any  sand-hoppers  nowadays.  My  jailer  gives 
me  pieces  of  meat  to  eat,  instead. 

If  I  had  known  that  any  person  was  coming  to 
take  me  away  from  my  rock,  I  should  have  held  on 
very  tightly  with  my  sucking-base,  and  resisted  as 
much  as  possible.  But,  you  see,  instead  of  slipping 


49 


50  A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGH  INGS. 

his  thumb  under  me  and  gradually  making  me  let  go 
of  the  rock,  the  man  who  is  now  my  jailer  took  a  ham- 
mer and  hit  a  piece  of  the  rock  that  I  was  sitting  on, 
and  before  I  knew  what  had  happened,  that  part  of  the 
rock  broke  off,  and  I  tumbled  with  it  into  the  man's 
basket.  I  was  not  at  all.  hurt,  though.  That  is  the 
best  way  to  get  us  anemones.  If  people  try  to  pull  us 
off  the  rocks  we  are  almost  sure  to  be  injured  so  we 
do  not  live  as  long  as  people  want  us  to.  They  should 
take  a  hammer,  if  they  expect  to  take  us  off  whole. 

The  man  took  me  home,  and  put  me  into  a  big 
bottle  where  some  seaweed  had  been  soaking  in  sea- 
water  for  an  hour  or  twro,  and  was  all  covered  with 
little  bubbles  of  air.  I  was  glad  to  find  that  such  pre- 
parations had  been  made  for  my  comfort.  I  have 
heard  of  poor  sea-anemones  being  put  into  soap-suds 
and  living  quite  a  while,  too.  But  I  am  sure  that 
they  could  not  have  enjoyed  it. 

And  I  heard  a  shocking  story  the  other  day  about 
some  anemones  being  put  into  a  kind  of  liquor 
called  porter.  An  Englishman  had  brought  the  an- 
emones to  town  with  him,  and  one  evening  he  and  a 


A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGHING S.  51 

friend  of  his  were  looking  at  them.  But  supper-time 
came,  and  after  the  meal  was  over,  as  the  things  were 
being  cleared  away,  the  servant  asked  what  should  be 
done  with  the  sea-anemones,  and  was  told  to  put  them 
into  a  jug. 

Now  the  servant  was  a  stupid,  ignorant  person, 
and  there  was  only  one  jug  on  the  table.  This  jug 
contained  some  porter,  and  the  servant,  taking  the 
poor  anemones,  threw  them  into  that  jug. 

The  gentleman  who  had  brought  the  anemones  did 
not  notice  what  the  servant  had  done,  and  nothing 
more  was  thought  about  the  poor  creatures  for  two 
weeks,  when  the  gentleman  wanted  to  see  them,  and 
called  for  the  anemone-jug.  To  his  surprise,  the 
porter-jug  was  brought,  and  there  were  the  poor 
anemones  alive,  after  their  long  soaking  in  liquor. 
Those  are  the  only  live  anemones  that  I  ever  heard  of 
that  had  anything  to  do  with  liquor  of  any  kind.  We 
are  all  temperance  folks,  but  we  do  like  to  have  our 
water  salt. 

Two  other  anemones  were  put  into  this  bottle  at 
the  same  time  that  I  was.  There  are  more  than  three 


A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGH  INGS. 


of  us  now,  however.  There  are  a  good  many  little 
anemones  over  on  that  pebble.  Cunning  little  pink 
things  they  are,  too,  and  they  spread  out  their  wee 
tentacles,  and  try  to  get  food  just  as  we  older  ones  do. 
Did  you  ever  see  an  anemone  fishing  for  food? 

We  look  very  differ- 
ently then  from  the 
way  we  do  when  we 
are  shut  up  and  rest- 
ing. We  will  eat  flies 


if  we  can  get  them. 
I  heard  of  a  man  who 


L» 

(Fishing.) 


gave  an  anemone  a 
fly,  one  of  the  big, 
blue-bottle  kind.  The  anemone  was  very  glad  to  get 
it.  Three  or  four  days  afterward,  the  man  saw  the 
same  fly  floating  on  the  water,  and  took  it  out,  or 
tried  to  do  so,  but  the  fly  fell  to  pieces,  for  it  was  really 
only  the  outside  husk.  The  anemone  had  disposed 
of  the  rest. 

When  my  jailer  gives  me  a  piece  of  meat,  I  snatch 
hold  of  it  with  my  tentacles  and  draw  it  into  my  mouth. 


A    SEA-ANEMONE'S  SIGHING S.  53 

Then  I  put  the  meat  inside  of  myself.  That  is,  I  tuck 
in  all  my  tentacles,  and  the  upper  part  of  my  body,  too, 
till  I  reach  my  stomach.  Then  I  digest  that  bit  of 
meat.  My  arms  are  in  my  stomach,  too,  at  the  time, 
but  that  does  not  trouble  me  at  all.  I  know  better 
than  to  try  to  digest  my  arms.  When  I  am  through 
with  the  bit  of  meat,  I  toss  it  out  into  the  water.  All 
the  nourishment  has  been  taken  out  of  the  meat,  and 
only  some  white,  stringy  stuff  is  left. 

Do  you  want  to  know  what  those  jelly-like  things 
are  that  are  scattered  over  this  bottle  ?  They  are  my 
overcoats.  That  is,  some  of  them  are  mine,  and  some 
belong  to  the  other  anemones.  You  see,  when  I  have 
been  staying  in  one  spot  for  some  time,  and  want  to 
move  away,  I  throw  off  my  overcoat  and  leave  it  behind, 
to  mark  the  place  where  I  have  been  sitting.  Not  that 
I  care  anything  about  marking  the  place,  but  throwing 
off  our  overcoats  is  a  fashion  we  anemones  have.  The 
overcoat  is  a  kind  of  jelly-like  membrane  that  covers  a 
sea-anemone  entirely,  and  sometimes  it  is  very  hard 
work  to  pull  it  off.  I  was  trying  to  strip  one  of  mine 
off  the  other  day,  and  I  really  do  not  believe  I  could 


54  A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGHING S. 

have  succeeded  if  that  man  who  is  my  jailer  had  not 
helped  me.  He  saw  what  I  was  trying  to  do,  and  he 
took  a  little  camel's-hair  brush,  and  reached  down  and 
helped  me.  It  was  very  kind  in  him,  and  the  minute 
I  managed  to  pull  that  oVercoat  off,  I  spread  right  out 
and  looked  just  as  pretty  as  possible.  He  likes  to  see 
me  look  that  way.  Sometimes  he  holds  me  up  to  the 
light,  and  then  he  can  see  the  sucking-base  by  which  I 
move.  I  look  very  pretty  then,  for  the  dark-green  lines 
that  spread  out  from  the  center  of  my  base  show,  and 
there  is  a  row  of  blue  globules  around  my  edge  among 
my  spread  tentacles.  I  suppose  the  contrast  is  very 
fine.  The  man  says  I  am  pretty,  and  I  am  glad  if  I 
suit  him,  for  he  is  really  very  good  to  me. 

There  is  a  different  kind  of  anemone  down  on  the 
beach,  a  kind  this  man  has  not  found  yet.  I  think  he 
will  find  it  some  day,  though,  he  hunts  the  beach  so 
diligently.  The  anemone's  name  is  Bunodes,  and  in- 
stead of  having  a  sucking-base  of  only  one  lobe,  this 
anemone  has  a  base  of  six  or  seven,  so  that  Bunodes 
can  attach  himself  to  several  separate  stones  and  crev- 
ices. This  makes  it  hard  for  any  collector  to  capture 


A    SEAr-ANEMONE'S  SIGHING S. 


55 


SEA-ANKMoNE. 


Bunodes  without  injuring  him  so  that  he  will  die.     If 

the  lobes  of  the  sucking-base  are  injured  at  all,  Bunodes 

is  very  likely  to  die. 

But    you    ought    to    see    that 

kind    of   anemone   eat.      He   is  a 

dreadfully  hungry  creature,  and   I 

tell  you  the  crabs  and  the  limpets 

have  to  be  smart  to  escape  from 

Bunodes.      You    see,    he    has    a 

number  of  things  called  "  thread- 

capsules  "  scattered  over  his  body,  but    his   tentacles 

are  crowded  with  them,  and  when  he  wants  to  catch  a 

crab,  he  throws  these 
little  threads  at  him, 
and  holds  him  until  he 
is  killed.  Bunodes  is 
quite  powerful,  for  you 


know  it  is  not  an  easy 
thing  to  hold  a  crab 
that  wants  to  get  away.  But  if  Bunodes  lays  hold  of 
even  one  leg  of  a  crab  the  poor  fellow  must  stay  and 
be  eaten. 


BUNODES    CRASSICORNIS. 


A    SEA-ANEMONE'S  SIGHINGS. 


I  used   to  become   acquainted  with    queer   things 
down    by   the   water.     There    were    the    red    star-fish. 

Sometimes  children  would 
pick  them  up  and  carry  them 
away  and  come  back  to  throw 
them  into  the  water  again, 
thinking  they  were  dead. 

But  the   star-fishes   often   ap- 
^==^ <2_r 

pear  dead  when  they  are  not. 

I  used  to  meet  a  remnant  of  a  Vilella  sometimes. 
Did  you  ever  see  one?  It  looks  as  if  it  had  hoisted  a 
sail  to  the  wind,  but  it  is  really  a  number  of  polyps 
living  together  and  sailing  the  sea  in  company.  The 
polyp  that  sits  in  the  center  is  the  one  that  eats 
for  the  company.  I  am 
sure  that  we  anemones 
would  never  agree  to 
form  an  association  and 
let  one  of  us  do  the  eat- 
ing for  all.  But  it  is  dif- 
ferent with  the  Vilella  folks.  This  central  polyp  does 
the  eating,  as  I  said,  and  a  man  who  examined  such 


VILKI.I.A    LIMROSA. 


IN   SEARCH    OF   STAR-FISH. 


A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGHING S.  5J 

V 

creatures,  always  found  in  the  interior  fragments  of 
shells  and  some  remains  of  small  fishes,  showing  what 
the  eating  polyp  likes  for  dinner.'  This  polyp,  since  it 
does  all  the  eating,  has  to  nourish  all  the  other  polyps 
on  board  the  Vilella. 

Once  a  lady  was  walking  on  the  seashore  near  me. 
She  had  been  looking  at  a  dead  Vilella,  and  then  she 
had  picked  up  a  star-fish,  and  she  told  a  boy  who  was 

with  her  that  she  had  read  that  there  used  to  be  an 

• 
old  law  in   the   Admiralty  Court   of  England,  saying 

that  all  those  persons  who  did  not  treat  star-fish  badly 
should  be  severely  punished.  The  law  spoke  of  those 
who  "  do  not  tread  under  their  feet,  or  throw  upon  the 
shore,  a  fish  called  a  five-finger,  resembling  a  spur- 
rowel,  because  that  the  fish  gets  into  the  oyster  when 
they  gape  open,  and  suck  them  out." 

I  am  afraid  that  star-fish  do  attack  small  mollusks, 
clams  and  mussels,  but  then,  what  are  the  star-fish 
to  do?  Must  they  go  hungry,  with  so  good  a  din- 
ner within  reach?  No  star-fish  is  going  to  do  that. 
Some  seamen  call  star-fish  "  five-fingered  Jack." 

Star-fish  are  very  careful  of  their  eggs.     A  star-fish 


60  A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGH  INGS. 

i 

will  gather  the  eggs  together,  bending  its  arms  down- 
ward, and  arching  its  body  so  as  to  brood  over  the 
eggs,  the  way  a  hen  does,  and  if  by  any  accident  the 
star-fish's  eggs  become  scattered,  the  creature  will  take 
great  pains  to  gather  them  together  again.  The  ex- 
periment has  been  tried  in  an  aquarium,  and  it  has 
been  found  that  a  star-fish  will  travel  the  whole  length 
of  its  tank  till  the  eggs  are  found  and  recovered. 

That  lady  walked  along  a  few  steps  past  me,  and, 
stooping,  she  lifted  a  stone  beside  a  pool.  Something 
whisked  its  winding  length  out  of  sight. 

"Oh  !  "  cried  the  lady,  dropping  the  stone.  "  Why, 
that  was  an  eel." 

"  Let  me  have  him,"  called  the  boy,  running  to  the 
spot. 

But  the  boy  could  not  catch  the  eel,  try  as  he 
might. 

Both  people  sat  down  on  the  sand  then,  and  the 
lady  told  the  boy  something  about  eels.  I  do  not 
remember  it  all,  but  she  said  that  there  was  once  a 
Roman  called  Lucius  Crassus,  who  used  to  bring  up 
a  kind  of  eel  almost  by  hand.  The  kind  of  eel  was 


A    SEA-ANEMONE'S  SIGHING S.  61 

known  as  the  muraena,  and  the  ones  Crassus  had  were 
so  tame  that  they  would  spring  out  of  the  water  when- 
ever he  came  near  them.  Crassus  would  put  on  them 
rings  and  other  ornaments,  and  one  writer  said  that 
the  loss  of  these  eels  was  a  greater  grief  to  Crassus 
than  the  death  of  his  three  children.  Crassus  must 
have  been  a  queer  man,  if  that  is  true. 

Some  folks  used  to  believe  that  eels  grew  from  a 
kind  of  dew  that  fell  in  the  months  of  May  or  June,  on 
the  banks  of  some  particular  ponds  or  rivers,  and  that 
in  a  few  days  by  the  sun's  heat  was  turned  into  eels. 
In  England,  the  fen-country  called  the  Isle  of  Ely  was 
said  to  be  so  named  because  of  the  great  number  of 
eels  that  lived  there. 

Some  of  the  other  things  that  came  by  when  I  was 
down  by  the  sea,  were  the  crabs.  They  crawled  every- 
where. Some  of  them  were  the  little  hermit  crabs 
that  carried  shells  around  with  them  and  changed 
shells  occasionally.  There  were  bigger  crabs  that 
walked  around  without  shells,  and  one  of  them  said 
that  he  was  glad  he  had  not  lived  in  the  days  when 
some  people  used  to  practice  "  crabbing  the  parson." 


62 


A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGHINGS. 


COMMON   MADREPORE. 


I  asked  him  what  he  meant,  and  he  told  me  that 
there  was  once  an  old  English  custom  of  throwing 

crabs  in  a  shower  on  the 
"  parson,"  or  minister,  as  he 
went  to,  or  came  from,  the 
chapel  at  the  wake  called 
"  Kenelm's  Wake  "  or  "  Crab 
Wake."  People  used  to  pelt 
each  other  with  crabs  for  fun, 
I  suppose,  but  if  the  crabs 
were  alive  they  could  not 
have  thought  it  was  very  funny,  for  they  must  have 
been  hurt.  I  believe  "  Crab  Wake  "  came  some  time 
in  July. 

I  forgot  to  tell  you  about  the  Madrepores.  They 
belong  to  the  polyps,  and  look  somewhat  like  me. 
But  how  tightly  a  Madrepore  will  stick  to  a  rock! 
You  need  to  have  a  sharp  knife  if  you  are  going  to 
take  off  a  Madrepore.  The  creature  almost  forms 

A 

part  of  the  rock  itself. 

Madrepores  have  little  tentacles  that  look  a  good 
deal  like  mine.  I  have  heard  of  a  Madrepore  that  a 


A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGHING S.  63 

naturalist  once  kept  for  several  months.  He  could 
not  coax  it  to  eat  anything  but  the  least  bits  of  meat. 
Feeding  that  Madrepore  must  not  have  been  so  easy 
as  feeding  me,  I  think,  for  the  creature  would  not 
have  anything  to  do  with  a  small  fly. 

The  Madrepore  seemed  healthy,  and  the  naturalist 
said  that  he  thought  that  its  death  was  caused  by 
a  bad-tempered  Daisy  Anemone.  The  man  usually 
stirred  the  water  every  day,  so  as  to  imitate  as  far  as 
he  could  the  natural  stir  of  the  sea,  and  one  day  when 
he  did  this  the  Madrepore  was  washed  into  the  cave 
where  the  Daisy  Anemone  lived.  And  though  the 
Madrepore  was  speedily  put  back  in  the  little  place  of 
its  own,  a  spot  chiseled  for  it  in  the  rock,  yet  the 
Madrepore  never  seemed  to  recover.  It  lived  for  a 
week  or  two,  and  then  died,  and  all  the  naturalist  had 
left  was  the  Madrepore's  skeleton. 

I  am  sorry  if  the  Daisy  Anemone  was  so  bad-tem- 
pered, but  we  anemones  are  not  always  kind  to  other 
beings,  I  must  confess.  Don't  act  as  we  do. 

There  was  a  queer  creature  called  a  sea-mouse  that 
used  to  live  in  the  mud  by  the  sea.  That  sea-mouse 


THE    SF.A-MOUSE. 


64  A    SEA- ANEMONE'S  SIGH  INGS. 

was  perfectly  beautiful.  Its  bristles  shone  with  won- 
derful color.  That  is,  they  would  have  shone,  but  the 
sea-mouse  preferred  to  have  its  home  in  the  mud,  and 
of  course  light  is  necessary  to  show  the  beauty  of  the 
hairs,  or  bristles,  that  edge  the  body.  The  colors 

have  changing  tints 
that  flash  along  the 
bristles  when  they  are 
moved.  Red,  white, 
blue,  orange,  scarlet, 
are  colors  that  mark  those  bristles.  A  naturalist  once 
said  that  it  is  certainly  not  possible  to  think  of  any 
structure  more  beautiful  than  these  bristles. 

And  yet  the  sea-mouse  hides  in  the  mud.  I  be- 
lieve that  I  have  heard  that  pretty  folks  generally, 
among  you  human  beings,  like  to  be  seen,  but  the  sea- 
mouse  is  not  very  vain.  If  it  is  kept  in  an  aquarium, 
the  sea-mouse  will  usually  stay  in  places  so  hidden  by 
the  weeds  and  stones  that  the  owner  will  have  to  hunt 
to  find  the  creature. 

But  these  bristles  are  not  only  pretty,  they  are 
useful.  The  sea-mouse  is  thought  to  use  them  for 


A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGHfNGS. 


defense,  as  a  hedgehog  uses  its  spines.  The  sea- 
mouse  can  draw  in  its  bristles,  though.  If  a  hedge- 
hog should  do  that,  I  suppose  the  spines  would  prick 
him  very  much,  instead  of  hurting  other  people.  How 
do  you  suppose  the  bristles  are 
kept  from  hurting  the  sea-mouse 
itself? 

There  is  a  very  wonderful  ar- 
rangement. Each  little  bristle 
has  a  double  covering  or  sheath, 
and  this  closes  when  the  bristle  is 
drawn  into  the  sea-mouse's  body, 
and  opens  again  wrhen  the  bristle 
comes  out.  The  same  naturalist  who  spoke  about  the 
beauty  of  the  bristles  said  that  it  was  hardly  possible 
to  think  of  anything  in  the  animal  kingdom  more  won- 
derful than  these  bristles.  Indeed,  I  am  very  sure  that 
no  man  could  have  thought  of  anything  so  beautiful 
and  wonderful  as  a  sea-mouse. 

But  if  you  should  find  a  sea-mouse  you  might  be 
disappointed  at  first,  for  its  back  is  slimy  because  the 
discolored  water  has  been  strained  through  a  great 


66  A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGH  INGS. 

many  fine  hairs.  The  gills  with  \\hich  the  sea-mouse 
breathes  are  underneath  the  back,  and  the  water  con- 
taining the  air  is  filtered  through  the  felt-like  covering. 
There  is  another  creature  called  the  "  sea-hare  " 
that  has  had  strange  things  told  about  it.  People 
used  to  look  at  sea-hares  with  horror  in  old  times,  and 
the  fishermen  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea  have  so  great 
a  horror  of  the  sea-hare  that  they  cannot  be  bribed 

to  touch  it  willingly,  and 
there  are  strange  stories 
that  are  told  by  the  fisher- 
men of  people's  having  had 
wounds,  or  mortified  limbs, 
or  having  been  killed  by 
touching  such  creatures  as  these. 

In  old  times  in  Rome,  people  said  that  the  sea-hare 
was  used  to  poison  persons,  and  when  a  man  named 
Apuleius  was  accused  of  magic,  because  he  had  married 
a  rich  widow,  the  greatest  charge  against  him  was  that 
he  had  hired  fishermen  to  get  the  sea-hare  for  him. 
Apuleius  proved  that  what  he  wanted  the  sea-hare  for 
was  to  satisfy  scientific  curiosity.  But  in  those  days, 


A    SEA-ANEMONE'S   SIGHING  S.  67 

any  one  who  hunted  for  the  sea-hare  was  looked  at 
with  suspicion. 

The  poison  that  was  prepared  for  the  Emperor 
Nero  was  said  to  have  had  some  sea-hare  in  it,  and  the 
Emperor  Domitian  was  accused  of  giving  the  sea-hare 
to  his  brother.  So,  you  see,  there  are  some  black 
stories  connected  with  the  sea-hare,  and  yet  I  do  not 
think  that  he  is  so  bad  a  fellow,  after  all.  He  is 
quite  gentle  and  fat,  and  wrears  his  shell  inside  of 
himself  instead  of  outside. 

A  naturalist  said  that  he  had  handled  the  sea-hare 
without  having  any  unpleasant  feeling  from  it.  But 
another  naturalist  found  at  St.  Jago  a  kind  of  sea-hare 
that  has  a  sort  of  secretion  spread  over  its  body,  and 
causing,  he  said,  a  sharp,  stinging  feeling.  Another 
man  said  that  as  often  as  he  took  a  sea-hare  from  the 
sea-water  vase  and  put  the  creature  on  a  plate,  the  room 
was  filled  with  such  an  odor  that  his  wife  and  brother 
had  to  go  away.  He  could  hardly  endure  it  himself, 
and  his  hands  and  cheeks  would  swell  after  he  had 
handled  a  sea-hare  any  length  of  time.  So  I  think  that 
the  sea-hare  cannot  be  good  company  for  some  folks. 


A   TREE-TOAD'S    CHIRPINGS. 

I  DO  not  think  that  I  have  a  very  good  time.  An 
old  German  found  me  in  the  yard,  and  he  keeps  me 
shut  up  in  a  tall  bottle.  There  is  a  little  wooden  lad- 
der in  the  bottle,  and  you  know  that  when  it  is  going 
to  be  fine  weather  we  little  green  German  tree-toads 
like  to  climb.  I  go  up  that  ladder  at  such  times,  but 
I  stay  down  toward  the  bottom  of  the  bottle  when 
rainy  weather  is  near.  That  German  keeps  me  on 
purpose  to  tell  him  \vhen  to  go  to  picnics.  He  looks 
at  me  every  time  he  is  invited  to  a  picnic.  If  I  am 
at  the  top  of  the  bottle,  he  goes ;  but  if  I  am  at  the 
bottom,  he  stays  at  home.  So,  you  see,  I  am  really 
quite  useful  to  him.  ^But  I  do  not  like  being  shut 
up  in  a  bottle.  I  wonder  if  the  tree-toads  in  other 
places  are  ever  treated  in  this  way. 

68 


A    TREE-TOAD'S   CHIRPINGS.  69 

But  I  am  sure  I  do  not  have  as  bad  a  time  as  tree- 
frogs  do  in  Australia.  There  are  a  great  many  of 
my  relatives  in  that  country.  They  are  called  Golden 
Tree-frogs,  and  whenever  the  natives  have  not  enough 
food,  they  go  out  with  torches  at  night  and  catch  my 
relatives  for  supper.  I  have  heard  the  German  talk 
about  it.  He  is  quite  a  learned  man,  and  he  reads 
and  talks  about  toads  often,  when  he  is  near  me. 

I  heard  him  say  that  I  have  some  pretty  relatives 
in  Central  America.  They  are  not  green  like  me,  but 
they  are  sky-blue  above  and  pink  beneath. 

The  German  read  a  <jood  deal  about  the  toad-stone 

o 

this  morning.  You  know  people  used  to  think  that  a 
toad  had  a  precious  stone  in  its  head.  The  German 
read  about  the  way  the  Italians  said  one  could  get  this 
stone. 

"  Take  a  toad  of  those  which  have  a  red  head," 
said  the  Italian,  "  place  him  in  a  cage  upon  a  piece  of 
scarlet  cloth,  and,  early  in  the  morning,  set  it  in  the 
rays  of  the  rising  sun.  The  toad  will  look  fixedly  at 
the  sun,  and  you  must  let  him  remain  there  three 
hours,  when  he  will  cast  forth  his  stone." 


70  A    TREE-TOAD'S   CHIRPINGS. 

People  thought  that  a  toad-stone  would  cure  any 
one  who  had  been  poisoned.  People  really  believed  in 
toad-stones  in  old  times,  and  if  a  person  had  a  stone 
and  did  not  quite  know  whether  it  was  a  toad-stone  or 
not,  there  was  said  to  be  a  way  of  finding  out.  The 
German  read  about  it : 

"You  shall  knowe  whether  the  tode-stone  be  the 
ryght  and  perfect  stone  or  not.  Holde  the  stone  be- 
fore a  tode,  so  that  he  may  see  it ;  and  if  it  be  a  ryght 
and  true  stone,  the  tode  will  leape  towarde  it,  and  make 
as  though  he  would  snatch  it.  He  envieth  so  much 
that  man  should  have  that  stone." 

Well,  no  one  need  have  worried  about  whether  he 
had  a  real  toad-stone  or  not,  for  there  is  no  such  thing. 
I  am  sure  there  is  no  precious  stone  in  my  head,  and 
although  I  am  not  one  of  the  earth-toads,  yet  I  am 
sure  they  do  not  carry  any  such  things  in  their  heads, 
either.  People  were  quite  mistaken  about  us. 

They  were  mistaken  about  another  thing,  too,  for 
the  German  said  that  some  English  folks  used  to 
believe  that  there  was  one  kind  of  frog  that  had  its 
mouth  naturally  shut  up  about  the  end  of  August,  and 


A    TREE-TOAD'S   CHIRPINGS. 


that  the  frog:  lived  so  all  winter.     The  man  who  wrote 

o 

about  it  in  old  times  said  that  though  this  might  seem 
strange  to  some,  yet  it  was  known  to  too  many  people 
to  be  doubted. 

I  am  afraid  that  that  man  was  easily  deceived. 
How  in  the  world  would  any  kind  of  a  frog  live  after 
its  mouth  had  been 
shut  up?  How  could 
it  eat  insects  ?  And 
the  same  man  wrote 
that  some  frogs  turn 
to  slime  in  the  winter, 
and  that  the  next  sum- 
mer the  slime  comes 
to  life  again.  I  am 
afraid  that  that  man,  whose  name  was  Izaak  Walton, 
never  raised  tadpoles  and  saw  them  turn  into  frogs. 

I  heard  the  other  day  of  a  frog  that  has  the  largest 
tadpoles  for  its  size  of  any  of  the  frogs.  This  frog 
lives  in  Guiana,  and  is  green,  spotted  with  brown.  It 
is  called  the  "  Jakie." 

I  heard  the  other  day,  too,  of  a  very  good  papa  frog 


KIND    PAPA    tROG    TAKES    CARE    OF   THE    EGGS. 


72  A    TREE-TOAD'S   CHIRPINGS. 

that  lives  near  Paris.  He  takes  care  of  the  little  tad- 
poles before  they  come  out  of  the  eggs.  When  such 
a  frog  as  that  is  going  to  do  such  a  thing,  he  sticks 
the  eggs  all  on  his  back  and  goes  away  and  buries 
himself  in  the  ground.  By  and  by  when  he  has 
staid  buried  so  long  that  the  eyes  of  the  little  tad- 
poles begin  to  show  inside  the  eggs,  Papa  Frog  comes 
out  of  his  hole  and  goes  to  some  still  pool.  He 
jumps  into  the  water,  and  there  he  lives,  till,  pretty 
soon,  the  eggs  begin  to  open  and  the  baby  tadpoles 
come  out  into  the  water.  Then,  when  all  are  out, 
Papa  Frog's  troubles  are  over,  and  he  can  leave  the 
children  to  grow  up  by  themselves. 

I  learned  not  long  ago  that  in  Bombay,  India, 
there  had  been  found  some  "  Frog  Beds."  I  thought 
at  first  that  they  were  beds  for  frogs  to  sleep  in,  but  I 
find  that  I  have  been  sadly  mistaken.  They  are  not 
beds  at  all,  but  places  in  the  ground  where  frogs  that 
long  ago  turned  into  stone  have  been  found.  I  am 
disappointed,  for  I  had  hoped  that  in  my  old  age,  when 
I  should  become  a  decrepit  tree-frog,  I  might  perhaps 
be  permitted  to  rest  my  weary  bones  in  one  of  those 


A    TREE-TOAD'S    CHIRPINGS.  73 

"  Frog  Beds."  But,  alas  !  my  hopes  are  gone.  I  must 
stay  in  this  bottle  and  act  as  a  barometer  for  that  Ger- 
man. My  comfort  is,  tho.ugh,  that  if  I  hear  him  talk 
and  read  about  frogs  and  toads  much  longer,  I  shall 
become  the  most  learned  tree-toad  that  ever  was  seen. 

I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  the  German  said  that  folks 
used  to  think  it  lucky  to  meet  a  frog  or  a  toad,  because 
they  thought  that  after  meeting  such  a  creature  they 
would  get  money.  The  German  read  this  aloud  the 
other  evening : 

"  Some  man  hadde  levyr  to  mete  with  a  frottde  or 
&  frogge  in  the  way  than  with  a  knight  or  a  squier,  or 
with  any  man  of  religion,  or  of  holy  churche,  for  than 
they  say  and  leve  that  they  shal  have  gold.  For  sum- 
tyme  after  the  metyng  of  a  frogge  or  a  tode  they  have 
resceyved  golde  -  -  wele  I  wote  that  they  resseyve 
golde  of  men  or  of  wymen,  but  nat  of  frogges  ne  of 
todes,  but  it  be  of  the  devel  in  lyknesse  of  a  frogge  or 
a  tode  —  these  labourers,  delvers,  and  dykers,  that 
moost  mete  with  frogges  and  todes,  been  fulle  pore 
comonly  and  but  men  paye  them  their  hyre,  they  have 
lytel  or  naught." 


74  A    TREE-TOAD'S    CHIRPINGS. 

A  queer  story,  but  not  a  true  one,  used  to  be  told 
about  a  man  called  St.  Regulus  and  the  frogs  of  Senlis. 
The  story  said  that  this  man,  Bishop  of  Aries  and 
Senlis,  found  that  the  croaking  of  the  frogs  greatly  in- 
terrupted him  when  he  was  preaching,  and  so  he  made 
a  covenant  with  the  frogs  that  he  would  not  drive 
them  out  if  they  would  agree  to  croak  only  one  at  a 
time.  I  do  not  know  whether  the  story  went  on  to 
say  that  the  frogs  agreed  to  this  or  not.  I  suppose 
so,  for  there  used  to  be  a  chapel  of  St.  Regulus  at 
Rully  that  was  decorated  with  frogs,  in  reference  to 
this  story,  which,  of  course,  is  a  made-up  one. 


A    SEAL'S    SAYINGS. 


THE    IGLOO.. 


WHEN  I  was  little, 
I  lived  in  an  igloo.  Do 
you  know  what  an  igloo 
is?  Well,  I  will  teil 
you  how  my  mother 
made  it,  and  then  per- 
haps you  will  be  able 
to  think  how  it  looked. 

You  know  that  seals 


keep  open  breathing-places  in  the  ice,  and  as  the  ice 
grows  thicker  and  thicker  in  the  cold  winter,  so  the 
tunnel  that  leads  up  from  the  water  at  a  breathing-place 
becomes  longer  and  longer.  My  mother  had  a  breath- 
ing-hole, and  one  day  she  climbed  straight  up  the 
tunnel  to  the  top  of  the  ice  that  covered  all  the  water. 

75 


A    SEAL'S  SAYINGS. 


I  suppose  that  you  think  that  when  she  arrived  at 
the  top  of  the  ice  she  was  in  the  open  air.  But  you 
are  mistaken.  There  was  a  great  pile  of  snow  all  over 
the  ice,  and  my  mother  poked  her  head  into  the  snow 
and  scraped  away  at  it  with  her  forepaws  till  she  had 

made  a  sort  of  house  with  a 
round  snow  roof  to  it.  This 
snow  house,  or  "  igloo,"  was 
much  wider  than  the  opening 
into  the  tunnel.  In  fact,  the 
igloo  was  quite  a  good  little 
room  with  sides  and  top  of 
snow,  and  an  ice  floor  with 
a  hole  in  it,  so  that  ma  could  go  back  into  the  water 
when  she  wanted  to  do  so. 

Well,  in  that  pretty  little  igloo  I  had  my  home. 
My  ma  liked  such  a  house  for  me  to  live  in,  because 
she  felt  that  I  would  be  safe  in  it  from  the  bears  and 
the  dogs  that  like  to  eat  little  seals.  Ma  took  care  of 
me  very  nicely.  She  could  easily  slip  clown  into  the 
water  and  come  back  again,  for  the  weight  of  the  ice 
and  snow  kept  the  water  up  the  tunnel  almost  to  its 


THE   SEA-LION. 


A    SEAL'S   SAYINGS. 


79 


upening  into  our  igloo.     Don't  you  wish  you  had  been 
with  me  and  found  out  how  a  seal  lives  in  an  igloo? 

Sometimes  people  have  tamed  some  of  us  seals. 
Once  some  person  on  the  Shetland  Islands,  near  Scot- 
land, tamed  a  seal  and  kept  her  around  the  island  for 
six  months.  When  this  seal,  that  had  the  name  of 
"  Sealchie,"  heard  her- 
self called  from  a  dis- 
tance,  she  would 
answer,  even  if  she 
were  in  the  sea,  and 
would  swim  ashore 


and    awkwardly 

waddle    over   the 

stones  and  grass  till 

she  came  to  the  lodge   of  her  owner.     But  one  day, 

when  Sealchie  was  in  swimming,  a  snowstorm  came 

on  and  some  wild  seals  coaxed  her  to  go  away  with 

them.     So  her  tamer  lost  her. 

Some  of  the  California  Indians  have  a  rather  queer 
story  connected  with  seals  and  sea-lions.  The  coast 
people  of  Northern  California  tell  the  story  about  a 


MA   COULD   SLIP   OVER   THE    ICE. 


8o  A    SEAL'S  SAYINGS 

great  bed  of  mussel-shells  and  bones  of  animals  that 
exists  at  Point  St.  George.  This  bed,  the  Indians  say, 
was  left  there  by  seven  people  called  Hohgates,  who 
came  to  the  place  in  a  boat  and  built  themselves 
houses  above  ground,  the  way  white  men  do.  The 
Hohgates,  say  the  Indians,  came  to  the  place  about 
the  time  when  the  first  natives  came  down  the  coast 
from  the  North,  and  the  Hohgates  used  to  live  on  elk 
and  on  the  seals  and  sea-lions,  the  people  killing  the 
seals  with  a  kind  of  harpoon  that  was  made  of  a  knife 
attached  to  a  stick,  and  all  fastened  to  the  boat  by  a 
long  line.  The  Hohgates  brought  in  their  boats  a 
great  many  mussels,  too,  from  the  rocks,  and  of  course 
there  were  a  great  many  bones  and  shells  left  from  all 
this  eating. 

But  one  day  the  seven  Hohgates  were  out  at  sea 
in  their  boat,  and  they  harpooned  a  great  sea-lion  that 
dragged  them  on  at  a  terrible  rate  of  speed.  The  sea- 
lion  rushed  toward  a  great  whirlpool  called  Chareck- 
quin.  This  whirlpool  was  toward  the  northwest,  and 
the  poor  ignorant  Indians  say  that  it  is  the  place 
where  souls  go,  where  they  shiver  forever  in  darkness 


A    SEAL'S  SAYIXGS.  Si 

and  cold.     There  is  a  bitterly  cold  northwest  wind  — 
the  Charreck-ra\vek--that  sweeps  over  the  place. 

Toward  the  whirlpool  fled  the  distressed  sea-lion, 
dragging  the  seven  Hohgates  in  their  boat.  Nearer 
and  nearer  they  came,  when,  just  as  the  edge  of  the 
dreadful  whirlpool  was  reached,  a  wonderful  thing 
occurred.  Snap !  went  the  rope,  and  down  into  the 
whirlpool  plunged  the  sea-lion.  But  he  was  alone,  for 
mysteriously  the  Hohgates  were  caught  up  into  the 
air.  Round  and  round  their  boat  swung,  going  up 
higher  and  higher.  No  man  on  earth  ever  saw  the 
seven  Hohgates  again,  but  the  Indians  say  that  there 
are  in  heaven  seven  stars  that  all  men  know,  and  these 
are  the  seven  Hohgates  that  never  more  appeared  on 
earth. 

I  suppose  by  the  seven  stars  that  all  men  know, 
the  Indians  mean  the  Big  Dipper,  but  I  am  sorry  for 
them  that  they  should  think  that  souls  have  to  shiver 
forever  in  darkness  and  cold  in  that  great  whirlpool. 


AN    EARTH-WORM'S    REMARKS. 


A   LOWLY   PERSON. 


I  AM  a  very  lowly 
person.  Ploughing  is 
my  occupation.  At 
present  I  am  living  in 
the  side  of  that  little  trench  that  runs  from  the  wood- 
shed to  the  fence.  A  number  of  other  earth-worms 
live  near  me. 

I  have  no  eyes,  and  am  deaf.  Once  a  naturalist 
kept  some  earth-worms,  and  tried  experiments  to  see 
if  they  could  hear,  but  the  worms  did  not  mind  the 
squeaks  of  a  whistle  or  the  loudest  tones  of  a  bassoon, 
and  when  the  man  put  the  earth-worms  on  a  table 
near  a  piano,  and  the  instrument  was  sounded  as 
loudly  as  possible,  the  worms  did  not  move  at  all,  as 

though  they  had  heard  anything. 

82 


AN  EARTH-WORM'S  REMARKS.  83 

But  although  we  earth-worms  are  deaf,  yet  we  can 
feel  sounds,  if  we  cannot  hear  them.  When  that 
naturalist  put  the  pots  of  earth  on  the  piano,  so  that 
the  worms  could  feel  the  vibrations,  and  then  struck 
the  notes,  the  worms  were  greatly  frightened  and  went 
into  their  holes  in  a  hurry. 

This  naturalist  used  to  give  his  worms  pieces  of 
raw  and  roasted  meat,  and  fasten  such  pieces  to  the 
earth  by  long  pins,  and  he  said  that  night  after  night 
he  saw  the  earth-worms  tugging  away  at  such  pieces, 
trying  to  eat  them. 

He  found  out,  too,  that  \ve  worms  will  swallow 
very  sharp  things,  for  his  earth-worms  swallowed  the 
thorns  of  roses,  and  some  small  pieces  of  glass.  We 
can  do  it,  for  all  of  us  that  swallow  earth  have  giz- 
zards that  are  lined  with  very  strong  membranes,  and 
have  very  powerful  muscles  around  them.  We  find 
our  gizzards  very  useful,  and  we  often  put  into  them 
a  number  of  small  stones  to  help  grind  the  earth. 
That  naturalist  used  to  give  his  worms  glass  beads 
and  pieces  of  brick  and  hard  tiles,  and  the  worms 
swallowed  them. 


84  AN  EARTH-WORM'S  REMARKS. 

I  have  some  relations  in  India  that  make  little 
towers  of  earth-castings.  Have  you  not  noticed  that 
we  earth-worms  have  little  piles  of  dirt  at  the  openings 
of  our  holes  ?  Well,  these  relatives  of  mine  make 
small  towers  at  their  doorways.  In  Italy  some  earth- 
worms do  the  same  thing,  the  towers  being  from  two 
to  three  inches  high.  Inside  of  the  tower  a  hole  runs 
up  to  the  top,  so  that  the  earth-worm  can  climb  his 
tower  and  look  over,  if  he  \vants  to  do  so.  But  what 
the  earth-worm  really  goes  upstairs  for  is  to  bring  up 
more  earth  and  make  the  tower  taller. 

Some  of  my  foreign  relatives  are  very  large,  for  a 
man  who  was  in  Ceylon  once  saw  an  earth-worm 
about  two  feet  long  and  half  an  inch  thick.  I  should 
feel  very  small  beside  such  a  monster. 

In  cold  countries  we  earth-worms  want  to  make 
our  burrows  deep  into  the  ground,  and  it  is  said  that 
in  Norway  and  Sweden  my  folks  burrow  down  seven 
or  eight  feet  under  ground,  and  in  North  Germany  a 
man  found  worms  frozen  a  foot  and  a  half  below  the 
surface. 

Salt  water  kills  us  earth-worms.     Vinegar  we  all 


A    LOY'S   USE    FOR    EARTH-WORMS. 


AN  EARTH-WORM'S  REMARKS.  87 

hate,  and  it  will  kill  us.  Once  a  man  had  some  barrels 
of  spoiled  vinegar  upset  on  some  land  of  his,  and  the 
next  morning  the  man  was  very  much  astonished  to 
see  the  number  of  dead  earth-worms  that  lay  on  the 
ground.  He  had  had  no  idea  that  there  were  so  many 
earth-worms  in  that  piece  of  land.  I  presume  you 
would  be  astonished  if  you  knew  how  many  of  us 
there  are  in  this  trench. 

I  told  you  that  ploughing  is  my  occupation,  and  that 
is  true.  We  earth-worms  regularly  upturn  the  land, 
and  I  think  we  are  very  useful  folks.  Long  before 
men  invented  ploughs  we  were  at  work,  and  that  natu- 
ralist whom  I  told  you  about,  and  whose  name  was 
Mr.  Darwin,  said  that  he  thought  it  might  be  doubted 
whether  there  are  many  other  animals  that  have 
played  so  important  a  part  in  the  history  of  the  world 
as  the  earth-worms  have.  Whether  that  is  so  or  not, 
I  hope  we  have  tried  to  do  the  work  that  the  One  who 
made  us  put  us  here  to  do.  We  are  very  humble 
creatures  indeed,  but  there  is  no  one  in  too  humble  a 
place  to  do  any  good.  This  is  true  even  among  men, 
I  believe.  I  am  sure  that  even  the  weakest  human 


88  AN  EARTH-WORM'S  REMARKS. 

being  must  be  able  to  do  more  good  than  a  little 
earth-worm  like  myself,  and  yet  even  I  am  good  for 
something. 

I  meet  various  neighbors  of  mine  once  in  a  while 
as  I  come  near  the  surface  of  the  ground.  There  are 
some  black,  lively  little  beetles  that  I  do  not  care  to 
become  very  well  acquainted  with.  They  are  called 
"  sun-beetles  "  or  Amara,  and  I  know  that  one  of  these 
little  beings,  when  in  confinement,  will  sometimes  take 

a  bite  at  an  earth-worm. 
That  is  the  reason  why  I 
do  not  want  to  meet  such 

LARVA   OF   ONE  OF  THE  CARABIDjE. 


When  the  Amara  beetles  are  scared  they  will 
sometimes  pretend  to  be  dead.  They  belong  to  the 
Carabidae,  or  ground  beetles,  and  sometimes  I  have 
met  their  children.  They  are  long,  brown  and  white, 
and  not  at  all  the  shape  of  the  beetles. 

Occasionally  I  find  little  piles  of  slug-eggs  an  inch 
or  so  underground.  They  are  quite  small,  and  some- 
what sticky.  Little  white  slugs  about  an  eighth  of  an 
inch  long  will  come  from  such  eggs  after  a  while. 


AN  EARTH-WORM'S  REMARKS.  89 

There  are  some  other  beetles  sometimes  traveling 
around  this  yard,  in  the  corners  and  under  the  bushes. 
The  beetles  come  here  to  help  get  rid  of  decaying 
meat  on  old  bones,  or  dead  birds,  or  mice,  or  anything 
like  them.  Sexton  beetles  they  call  themselves,  and 
I  think  they  are  as  useful  as  I  am.  Cleaning  up  is  as 
necessary  as  ploughing,  I  am  X^-. 
sure.  The  Sextons  that  I  have 
seen  are  dark  colored,  but  there 

are    some  Sextons  that    dress 

5"     ^ 
T  e 

o ,  @)  ) 

J          ^> ~^N    f^f 

coppery  bronze.      French 

people  call  the  Sextons  "  Shield  Beetles,"  on  account 
of  their  flat  shape  and  the  way  part  of  the  body  pro- 
jects above  the  head. 

The  children  of  the  "  Silphas,"  as  the  Sextons  are 
called,  are  flat  and  black.  They  are  quite  lively,  but 
they  often  do  not  have  a  very  pleasant  odor  to  them. 
Indeed  the  word  "Silpha"  means  "an  ill-smelling  in- 
sect." One  of  the  Silpha  beetles  has  a  black  spot 


9o 


AN  EARTH-WORM'S  REMARKS. 


that  looks  a  little  like  a  cross,  on  the  back  near  the 
head,  and  a  naturalist  once  gave  this  kind  of  insect 
the  name  of  the  "  Crusader  Carrion  Beetle,"  because 
in  old  times  each  Crusader  who  went  to  help  recover 
the  Holy  Land  wore  a  cross  on  his  coat. 

One  of  the  Sextons  told  me  that  there  are  beetles 

that  dare  to  live  in 
the  water.  He  said 
he  knew  it  is  so,  be- 
cause one  night  there 
was  a  light  in  the  yard 
and  several  beetles 
flew  over  from  the 
brook  near  this  place.  The  beetles  declared  that  they 
lived  in  the  water,  and  Neighbor  Sexton  believed 
them.  But  an  earth-worm  would  find  it  uncomfort- 
able living  in  water,  I  am  sure.  I  like  a  damp  place; 
but  when  it  rains  so  hard  that  I  think  I  am  going  to 
be  drowned,  I  crawl  up  on  a  board.  A  great  many 
earth-worms  at  such  times  crawl  on  sidewalks  and  are 
crushed  by  people  who  walk  the  streets.  I  am  sure 
that  must  be  as  bad  as  being  drowned. 


A   TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 


LARVA    OK    UKGYIA    LEUCUSTIGMA. 


MY  name  is  Orgyia 
Leucostigma.  Maybe  you 
do  not  think  that  is  an 
easy  name  to  pronounce. 
Perhaps  it  is  harder  than 
your  own.  Well,  then, 
you  may  call  me  the 
"  Tussock-Moth." 


Only  I  am  not  a  moth  yet.  I  am  a  hairy  cater- 
pillar. I  am  queer-looking  —  more  so.  than  most 
caterpillars,  too.  In  the  first  place,  I  have  a  sort  of 
hump  on  my  back,  like  a  camel,  only  my  hump  is 
made  of  hair  growing  in  four  bunches.  Then  some 
of  the  rest  of  my  hair  falls  over  my  forehead,  as  a 
little  girl's  bangs  might  over  hers,  only  I  never  stop 

91 


92  A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 

to  curl  mine.  But  the  queerest  things  about  me,  the 
things  that  you  would  notice  first,  perhaps,  are  three 
stiff,  dark  brushes  of  hair  that  stand  away  out  from 
my  body.  There  are  two  on  my  head,  shooting  out 
like  horns,  and  then  there  is  one  standing  out  of  my 
back. 

I  was  on  the  side  of  the  woodshed  the  other  day. 
I  had  been  taking  a  walk,  and  I  was  wondering  if  I 
had  better  spin  a  cocoon,  when  some  one  touched  me, 
and  took  me  down  from  my  place.  The  some  one 
was  a  little  girl. 

She  put  me  in  her  hand,  and  patted  me  with  one 
finger,  and  said,  "  Poo'  'ittle  patter-pillar!"  She  was 
a  very  small  girl,  and  I  suppose  that  she  did  not 
know  how  to  talk  plainly,  and  say  "  caterpillar."  But  I 
excused  her,  because  she  was  so  very  gentle  with  me. 
I  was  afraid  she  would  shut  me  up  tightly  in  her 
hnnd  and  squeeze  me  to  death,  but  she  did  not  act  so 
at  all. 

She  carried  me  into  the  house  to  show  me  to  her 
mother,  and  that  lady  put  me  into  a  glass  tumbler  and 
gave  me  a  whole  big  apple-leaf. 


A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 


93 


That  made  me  very  happy.  If  there  is  anything 
that  I  like  it  is  an  apple-leaf.  Sometimes  I  have 
eaten  the  leaves  of  vegetables,  for  I  am  not  so  very 
particular. 

So  I  gave  up  all  idea  of  making  a  cocoon  just 
then,  and  went  to 
eating.  I  ate  quite 
a  hole  in  that  leaf, 
and  the  little  girl 
stood  and  watched 
me  do  it. 

Her  mother  told 
her  that  I  shall  turn 
into  a  moth.  But  I 

do  not  believe  that  her  mother  knows  that  although 
I  shall  be  a  moth  yet  perhaps  I  shall  not  have  any 
wings.  All  moths  do  not  have  wings.  Some  of  us 
Tussock  Moths  do  not.  My  mother  did  not.  I  have 
heard  so,  at  least,  but  I  never  saw  my  ma.  She  died 
when  I  was  in  a  white  egg. 

This  was  my  ma's  life.  She  was  a  caterpillar; 
then  she  spun  a  cocoon  and  went  to  sleep;  then  one 


;  SHE   GAVE    ME    AN    APPLE-LEAF." 


94 


A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 


day  she  woke,  came  out,  laid  a  number  of  eggs  on  top 
of  the  cocoon,  and  then  died. 

If  I  can  fly  when  I  come  out  of  my  cocoon  I  shall 
have  pretty  wings,  and  some  feelers,  or  "antennae," 

that  look  like  very  little 
toothed  combs  standing  out 
from  my  head. 

I  think  I  am  very  fortu- 
nate in  being  a  hairy  cater- 
pillar, because  birds  do  not 
like  to  eat  me,  the  way  they 
do  some  kinds  of    smooth 
•caterpillars.     My    hairy 
covering  has  often  protected  me  from  danger. 

Here  comes  that  little  girl  with  another  apple-leaf. 
She  brings  me  so  many  that  I  have  hardly  time  to  eat 
them.  Every  time  she  brings  one  she  has  to  stop  and 
pat  me  very  softly.  She  says  that  I  feel  just  like  her 
"  pussy-tat,"  and  I  should  think  that  I  -might.  But  I 
do  not  think  that  I  shall  want  to  become  very  well 
acquainted  with  her  pussy.  Cats  are  enemies  of 
moths  and  butterflies.  I  do  not  suppose  that  Pussy 


COCOON    OF  TUSSOCK-MOTH. 


A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS.  97 

would  care  very  much  about  a  hairy  caterpillar  like 
myself,  but  if  I  have  wings  hereafter  I  shall  not  come 
near  her  if  I  know  it. 

I  wish  I  might  fly  high  enough  so  that  no  cat 
could  catch  me.  A  butterfly  that  came  by  the  other 
day  told  me  about  some  big  South  American  butter- 
flies that  are  called  Morphos.  The  largest  of  them 
sometimes  measures  seven  and  a  half  inches  across  the 
wings,  and  it  is  very  difficult  to  catch  such  butterflies, 
because  they  fly  so  high.  A  man  who  had  traveled  in 
Brazil  said  that  it  \vas  a  grand  sight  to  see  the  tremen- 
dous butterflies  by  twos  and  threes  floating  high  over- 
head in  the  still  morning  air.  The  butterflies  would 
flap  their  wings  once  in  a  while,  but  not  often,  for  the 
man  noticed  the  creatures  sailing  for  a  considerable 
distance  without  a  stroke.  One  kind  of  the  Morphos 
seldom  comes  nearer  the  ground  than  twenty  feet,  but 
its  blue  wings  flash  so  in  the  sunlight  that  they  can 
be  seen  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away. 

That  little  girl  has  an  older  brother  who  came  and 
looked  at  me  this  morning.  He  was  not  very  polite, 
for  he  said,  "  What  a  horrid  caterpillar !  "  and  then  his 


98  A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 

mother  told  him  that  he  was  like  some  men  who  used 
to  work  in  the- same  shop  as  a  Scotch  naturalist. 

This  naturalist  was  a  poor  man,  and  could  not 
always  afford  to  spend  his  time  on  the  hills  collecting 
insects,  but  in  the  summer  he  caught  a  number  of 
caterpillars,  and  used  to  bring  them  in  a  box  and  put 
them  beside  him  in  the  shop  where  he  worked.  Once 
in  a  while  some  of  these  caterpillars  would  manage  to 
slip  out  of  the  box  and  go  traveling  around  the  room. 
Some  of  the  workmen  did  not  care,  but  there  was  one 
called  Geordie,  who  was  very  much  afraid  of  the  cater- 
pillars. He  would  become  so  terrified  that  he  almost 
went  into  convulsions  when  he  knew  that  a  caterpillar 
was  out  of  the  box. 

So  the  other  men  used  to  play  tricks  on  Geordie. 
They  called  a  caterpillar  a  "  lad,"  and  whenever  they 
wanted  to  scare  the  man  they  would  cry  "  Geordie, 
there's  a  lad  oot; "  and  then  poor  Geordie  would  jump 
up  and  be  very  much  frightened  till  he  was  sure  that 
every  caterpillar  was  safe  in  the  box. 

The  little  girl's  brother  said  that  he  did  not  thftik 
that  he  disliked  caterpillars  as  much  as  Geordie  did, 


A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 


99 


and  he  did  not  think  it  was  right  in  the  men  to  say 
there  was  a  caterpillar  out  unless  it  was  so.  That 
boy's  mother  has  always  taught  him  to  tell  the  truth, 
and  I  do  not  know  whether  the  men  that  worked  with 
Geordie  told  the  truth  every  time  or  not. 

I  am  sure  that  no  one  need  be  so  much  afraid  of 
us  caterpillars.  It  is  silly  to  be  terrified  by  a  cater- 
pillar, for  it  is  only  a  moth 
or  a  butterfly  covered  up  in 
a  queer  kind  of  dress,  and  I 
am  sure  that  folks  are  not 
afraid  of  most  butterflies  or 
moths. 

Some  beautiful  butter- 
flies are  going  to  let  their 
children  feed  this  summer 
on  the  apple-tree  from  which  that  little  girl  gets  my 
leaves.  The  butterflies  are  black  and  yellow,  with 
"  swallow-tails,"  and  are  called  Turnus  butterflies. 
Their  children  on  the  apple-tree  will  be  little  cater- 
pillars that  will  be  brown,  spotted  with  black,  at  first. 
Each  caterpillar  will  have  a  large  whitish  spot  in  the 


ioo  A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 

middle  of  his  back.  But  when  the  caterpillars  are 
fully  grown  they  will  have  changed  their  color  and 
become  green.  Then  each  caterpillar  will  turn  into  a 
chrysalis,  and  if  nothing  happens  a  beautiful  butterfly 
will  come  out  of  each  chrysalis.  The  Turnus  caterpil- 
lars never  have  to  wonder  whether  they  will  have 
wings  or  not,  for,  if  they  live  to  be  butterflies,  they 
are  sure  to  have  them.  But  I  shall  have  to  live  on  in 
uncertainty  for  a  while  yet. 

There  is  a  queer  caterpillar  on  that  big  thistle  in 
the  yard.  The  caterpillar  is  so  hidden  that  if  you  did 
not  know  exactly  where  to  look,  you  might  not  see 
her.  She  lives  alone;  not  in  a  company,  the  way 
some  caterpillars  live.  She  is  inside  one  of  the  thistle 
leaves.  I  think  it  is  about  the  tenth  leaf  from  the  top 
of  the  thistle.  She  has  drawn  the  two  sides  of  the 
leaf  together  so  as  to  hide  herself,  and  there  she  stays 
and  eats  thistle.  I  should  not  think  she  would  like 
such  food. 

I  heard  her  say  once,  that  some  day  she  should 
turn  into  a  chrysalis  marked  with  gold  spots,  and  after 
that  she  should  come  out  and  be  a  "  Painted  Lady." 


A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 


101 


She  said  that  is  the  name  given  to  her  beautiful  kind 
of  butterfly  that  has  five -spots  on  the  under  side  of 
each  of  the  hind  wings.  That  kind  of  butterfly  has 
another  name,  but  it  is  so  hard  a  one  that  the  "  Painted 

* 

Lady  "  caterpillar  had  to  say  it  over  half  a  dozen  times 

before  I  could  remember  it.     It  is  "  Pyrameis  cardui" 

But  I  suppose  that  living  on  thistles  is  nothing. 

Why,  some  butterfly 
caterpillars  actually  live 
on  nettles,  and  seem  to 
think  nothing  of  it. 
There  is  a  butterfly 
called  the  "  Nettle  Tor- 
toise-shell "  that  puts  its 
eggs  on  the  under  side  of  a  nettle-leaf,  and  the  cater- 
pillars eat  nettles  as  if  they  were  good.  The  caterpil- 
lars of  the  "  Peacock  butterflies  "  in  Europe  eat  nettles, 
too. 

You  need  not  think  that  the  butterflies  have  all  the 
pretty  names,  for  there  is  a  moth  in  Europe  called  the 
"  Night  Peacock."  The  caterpillar  of  this  moth  has 
a  queer  way  of  leaving  one  end  of  its  large,  pear- 


IO2 


A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 


shaped  cocoon  open  when  making  it,  but  nothing  can 
come  in  to  harm  the  creature,  for  the  fibres  of  the  co- 
coon are  arranged  so  that  while 
the  moth,  when  it  is  ready,  can 
go  out  easily,  all  other  insects 
are  kept  out.  Is  it  not  wonder- 
ful that  God  should  have  taught 
a  caterpillar  how  to  weave  the 
cocoon  over  itself  in  so  protect- 
ing a  way?  I  am  sure,  since 
he  cares  for  us  poor  caterpillars, 
he  must  care  a  great  deal  more 
for  boys  and  girls,  they  are  so  much  bigger  and  more 

important  than  we  are. 

I  think  if  that  little 
girl's  brother  who  thought  I 
was  "  horrid  "  could  see  the 
caterpillar  of  the  "  Lobster 
moth  "  he  would  not  think 
me  the  most  ugly  caterpil- 
lar that  ever  grew.  The  "  Lobster  moth  "  caterpillars 
are  very  queer.  They  live  in  forests  on  beech  or  oak 


NKTTLE   TORTOISE-SHELL   EGGS. 


PEACOCK  BUTTERFLY  OF   EUROPE. 


A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 


103 


or  birch-trees,  and  are  pale  brown  or  leather  color. 
Oh !  if  you  could  see  the  queer  shape  and  the  two  tails 
of  such  a  caterpillar  you 
would  think  you  had  found 
a  strange  creature,  indeed. 

The    English    country 
people  know  a  creature  that  «  NIGHT  PEACOCK." 

they  call  the  Puss  Moth,  and  it  has  a  caterpillar  that 
the  French  call  the  Fork  Tail.  The  caterpillar  has 
two  tails,  like  the  Lobster  Moth  caterpillar,  and  it  has 

been  thought  possible 
that  the  Puss  caterpil- 
lar uses  them  to  scare 
the  dreadful  ichneu- 
mon-flies that  are  the 
enemies  of  so  many 
cater p  i  1  la  r  s.  But  I 
think  this  is  only  a 
guess. 

One  of  the  geometric  or  "  measuring  worms,"  or 
"drop-worms,"  as  people  call  them,  is  a  little  like 
me,  because  its  moth  sometimes  has  no  wings.  The 


THE   LOBSTER   MOTH. 


104 


A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S  COMMUNICATIONS. 


moth's  name  is  the  "  Mottled  Umber,"  and  when  it  has 
no  wings  it  looks  somewhat  like  a  spider. 

One  of  my  near  relations  is  Orgyia  antiqua,  which 

has  a  brown 
moth,  called 
the  "Vaporer 
M  o  t  h."  I 
myself  shall 


THE   PUSS   CATERPILLAR. 


be  brown-winged,  if  I  have  any  wings,  but  there  will 
be  a  white  spot  near  the  outside  of  each  of  my  wings, 
and  I  shall  be  a  darker  brown  than  the  Vaporer  Moth. 
There  is  another  near  relative  of  mine  called  Orgyia 
pudibunda,  and  its  caterpillar 
has  a  queer  name.  It  is  the 
"  Hop-dog,"  though  I  do  not 
know  why  such  a  name  should 
be  given  to  any  member  of 
the  caterpillar  family. 

Probably  there  is  a  reason  for  it.  There  is  a 
reason  for  almost  everything,  I  find.  One  of  the  but- 
terflies was  saying  only  the  other  day  that  she  had 
discovered  the  reason  for  the  name  of  the  "  Caliper 


THE   PUSS    MOTH. 


A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 


105 


Butterfly."     That  is   a    quite    rare  butterfly  that   has 
been  found  in  Java,  I  believe.     A  man  once  caught  a 


Winter 


specimen  as  the  butterfly  was  sitting  sucking  the 
liquid  from  a  muddy  spot  by  the  roadside.  The  but- 
terfly sat  with  its  wings  up  while  sucking.  On  each 

hind  wing  are  two 
curved  tails,  and  they 
look  like  a  pair  of  cali- 
pers. Do  you  know 
what  calipers  are? 
They  are  compasses; 
not  like  those  the  little 
girl's  brother  uses  in 
drawing  at  school,  but 

compasses,  with  curved  legs,  meant  for  measuring  the 
diameters  of  round  bodies.  That  Caliper  butterfly 


CALIPER   BUTTERFLY. 


106  A    TUSSOCK-MOTH'S   COMMUNICATIONS. 

must  have  been  disgusted  to  think  it  staid  so  long 
drinking  that  it  was  caught.  The  most  easy  way  of 
taking  the  finest  butterflies  of  warm  countries  is  to 
draw  near  the  butterflies  when  they  are  drinking. 

The  man  never  saw  another  butterfly  like  his  Cali- 
per  one,  and  when  he  wrote  about  it  he  said  it  was  still 
the  only  butterfly  of  its  kind  in  English  collections. 


A    PHOLAS'    PROTESTATIONS. 


WELL,  suppose  I  did 
squirt  that  sea-water  into 
your  face !  It  was  good 
enough  for  you.  What  did 
you  come  along  here  with 
your  hammer  for,  and  split 
the  rock  I  lived  in,  and  take  me  out?  I  guess  if  I 
want  to  live  in  a  rock  all  my  days,  I  have  a  right  to 
do  so,  and  who  are  you  with  your  hammer?  I'll 
throw  all  the  sea-\vater  I  please  on  you. 

You're  not  going  to  eat  me,  are  you  ?  Pholades 
are  good  to  eat.  Oh  !  I  didn't  mean  to  tell  you  that. 
Don't  eat  me,  please,  will  you?  I'll  tell  you  all  I 
know  about  myself  and  my  folks  if  you  won't.  I'll 
stop  squirting  water  at  you,  too.  I  suppose  I  should 


107 


loS 


A   P  HO  LAS'   PROTESTATIONS. 


have  to  stop  soon,  anyway,  now  that  you  have  taken 
me  out  of  my  rock  and  away  from  the  tide.  You  are 
sure  that  you  are  not  going  to  eat  me  ? 

Well,  then,  let  me  collect  my  senses  and  see  what 

I  can  think  of  to  tell 
you.  You  see  it  is 
exciting  to  be  taken 
out  of  my  hole  —  my 
hole  that  I  expected 
to  always  live  in. 
Just  see  how  you  and 
your  hammer  have 
spoiled  it.  My  hole 
that  I  bored  in  that  rock  myself. 

How  do  you  suppose  that  I  make  a  hole?  I  have 
a  kind  of  rasp  to  bore  with.  The  fore  part  of  my  shell 
is  set  with  stony  points  in  rows,  and  I  bore  away,  turn- 
ing from  side  to  side,  not  clear  around,  but  holding 
myself  in  place  by  my  foot.  My  shell  itself  is  made 
of  a  substance  called  aragonite,  which  is  harder  than 
the  rock  in  which  I  bore,  so  that  my  shell  will  not  be 
too  quickly  worn  out.  Isn't  that  good?  If  my  shell 


I   SEND   THE    I'AKTICLES  UP   ONE   OF    MY    SIPHONS. 


A   P HO  LAS'   PROTESTATIONS.  109 

wore  out  you  had  better  believe  I  would  stop  boring. 
It  would  not  feel  very  comfortable  to  have  my  body 
rubbing  against  rock,  I  suppose.  But  we  rock-crea- 
tures, as  well  as  others  that  do  not  live  in  rocks,  are 
wonderfully  made,  so  that  we  are  fitted  for  our  sur- 
roundings. 

I  rasp  off  the  rock,  as  I  said,  but  how  do  you  sup- 
pose I  get  rid  of  the  particles  ?  There  I  am  inside  my 
hole,  and  the  particles  might  bother  me,  but  I  send 
them  up  one  of  my  siphons  into  the  water.  Part  of 
the  rock-particles  lodge  between  my  valves  and  the 
stone,  forming  a  soft  mud.  A  man  once  watched  some 
Pholades  that  were  at  work  in  a  tide-pool  in  the  chalk, 
and  he  saw  a  cloud  of  chalk-powder  come  out  once  in 
a  while,  and  noticed  a  heap  of  such  powder  around  the 
mouth  of  each  burrow. 

You  see,  my  "  siphons,"  as  they  are  called,  are  two 
tubes  that  reach  from  me  and  my  shell  up  the  hole  to 
the  water  outside  the  rock.  The  two  tubes  are  close 
together,  like  a  double-barreled  gun,  and  through  one 
tube,  or  siphon,  I  draw  in  the  water.  This  contains 
the  air  that  I  must  have  for  breathing.  The  water 


i io  A   PHOLA-S'   PROTESTATIONS. 

passes  over  my  gills,  and  then  goes  out  up  the  other 
siphon.  I  send  the  rock-particles  up,  too,  when  I  am 
boring,  as  I  said. 

In  such  holes  we  Pholades  live  and  die,  and  you 
may  find  very  good  shells  of  dead  creatures  by  split- 
ting open  rocks.  Even  compact  limestone  may  be 
bored  by  us.  It  is  very  comfortable  to  sit  at  the  bot- 
tom of  a  hole,  and  let  your  long,  stout,  yellow  siphons 
run  out  and  bring  you  in  what  may  come.  There  is  a 
kind  of  Pholas  that  is  found  in  the  English  Channel 
and  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  lives  buried  in  the  mud, 
or  in  decaying  wood.  Along  the  French  coast  Pho- 
lades are  called  "  Dails,"  and  are  hunted  for  to  be 
eaten  on  account  of  their  fine  flavor.  Now,  remember, 
you  promised  not  to  eat  me. 

But  let  me  tell  you  one  thing.  You  know  that  a 
great  many  mollusks  shine  in  the  dark.  We  Pholades 
do,  and  if  any  one  were  eating  us  raw  in  the  dark  he 
would  look  as  if  he  swallowed  phosphorus. 

We  are  palatable  enough,  people  say,  so  that  it  is 
not  absolutely  necessary  to  cook  us.  But  I  think  I 
had  better  stop  talking  about  this  subject  of  eating. 


A   P  HO  LAS'   PROTESTATIONS. 


in 


Some  way  I  keep  mentioning  it  every  few  minutes, 
and  that  won't  do.  I  am  afraid  you  will  become  hun- 
gry, but  I  suppose  you  are 
a  truthful  person,  and  will 
keep  your  promise  to  me 

Are  you  going  to  let 
me  go  and  bore  another 
hole?  I  heard  about  a  Pholas  that  once  bored  into 
something  besides  rock.  A  lady  once  was  watching 
some  Pholades  that  were  in  a  basin  of  sea-water. 
They  were  boring,  and  the  lady  noticed  that  two  of 

them  were  boring  at  such  an 
angle  that  their  tunnels  would 
meet.  She  wondered  what 
would  happen  then,  so  she  kept 
on  looking. 

By  and  by  the  two  tunnels 
did  meet,  but  one  of  the  Pho- 
lades was  stronger  than  the  other,  and  what  did  the 
strong  one  do  but  bore  straight  through  the  weaker 
one,  as  if  it  had  been  only  a  piece  of  chalk.  Wasn't 
that  terrible  ?  I  am  sure  I  do  not  want  any  Pholas 


112 


A  P  HO  LAS'   PROTESTATIONS. 


boring  through  me  with  that  rasp.     I  think  the  lady 

must  have  been  shocked  at  wrhat  she  saw.  What 
must  she  have  thought  of  the  manner 
of  us  Pholades  ? 

You  should  not  think  that  I  would 
like  to  live  in  a  hole  always?  Oh!  it 
is  very  fine  to  live  in  a  hole.  Just 
because  you  do  not  like  such  a  place 
you  need  not  think  other  people  don't. 

A  great   many  seaside  folks   enjoy  living   in   holes,  I 

assure  you.     Only  the   holes   are   often   made  in   the 

sand  instead  of  in  the  rock. 

There    are    my    neighbors, 

the    Razor-shells,   in    holes 

on    the    sandy    beach.      A 

Razor-shell    will    pass    his 

whole  life  in  a  hole,  some- 
times going  up  to  the  top, 

and  sometimes  going  down 

to  the  bottom  of  it.     And 

that    is  journey  enough    for    a    Razor-shell    to  make. 
Sometimes    a    fisherman    who    wants    to    catch    a 


RAZOR-SHELL,    OR   SOLEN. 


A   P  HO  LAS'  PROTESTATIONS.  115 

Razor-shell  tries  to  do  so,  but  the  man  has  to  be  care- 
ful, for  the  Razor-shell  is  very  quick.  As  the  tide  goes 
out,  the  fisherman  walks  along  looking  for  the  jet  of 
sand  and  water  that  the  Razor-shell  throws  out  when 
frightened  by  the  man's  footsteps.  If  Neighbor  Razor- 
shell  would  not  do  that,  I  think  likely  the  fisherman 
would  not  know  where  the  hole  is,  but  after  that  jet 
appears,  the  man  plunges  a  narrow  iron  rod  into  the 
hole.  The  rod  has  a  barbed  head  that  may  pierce  the 
poor  Razor-shell,  and  hold  him  till  he  is  dragged  out 
of  his  hole.  But  if  the  fisherman  misses  his  aim  the 
first  time,  he  does  not  try  again  with  the  same  Razor- 
shell,  for  the  man  knows  that  the  creature  will  have 
gone  down  to  the  bottom  of  the  hole,  and  there  is  no 
getting  him  out  of  there. 

Neighbor  Cockle  likes  to  dig  his  hole  in  the  sand, 
too.  He  digs  with  his  foot,  which  is  a  kind  of  natural 
spade.  He  can  dig  almost  as  fast  as  a  man  can  with 
a  real  spade.  But  Neighbor  Cockle  does  another 
thing  with  his  spade.  He  uses  it  to  jump  with.  I  do 
not  see,  for  my  part,  why  he  should  want  to  jump,  but 
he  does.  He  stands  on  his  foot  and  springs  up  into 


Ji6 


A   P HO  LAS'   PROTESTATIONS. 


the  air.     I  am  sure  that  I  behave  in  a  more  dignified 
manner  than  that,  usually. 

But,  dignified  or  undignified,  you  human  beings 
seem  to  eat  us  all.  Ever  so  many  of  Neighbor 
Cockle's  folks  have  been  eaten,  and  a  great  many  of 
mine,  too.  But  you  promised  not  to  eat  me,  you 
know.  Now  will  you  let  me  go?  If  I  must  bore  my- 
self another  hole,  I  had 
better  be  about  it. 
Don't  tell  anybody 
where  I  make  my  hole, 
will  you  ?  I  do  n  o  t 
want  any  more  visitors. 
One  such  visitor  a  s 

you  have  been  is  quite 

} 

enough   for  a  lifetime. 

I  trust  I  shall  have  no 
more  callers  to  watch  me  while  I  am  at  work. 

There  go  the  wild  ducks.  Do  you  know,  I  believe 
they  are  going  to  call  on  the  short  Razor-shells,  on  the 
beach  ?  The  wild  ducks  are  delighted  \vhen  they  find 
a  number  of  those  Razor-shells,  and  sometimes  a  man 


A   PHOLAS'   PROTESTATIONS.  117 

has  seen  what  it  is  that  interests  the  ducks,  and  has 
come  shell-gathering,  too.  I  had  rather  keep  away 
from  both  ducks  and  men. 

Good-by.  I  am  going  to  bore  as  hard  as  I  can. 
This  rock  is  not  so  difficult  to  tunnel  as  the  hard  blue 
clay  that  my  cousin,  the  Rough  Piddock,  bores  into. 
There  is  another  kind  of  Piddock  in  California  that  is 
economical,  I  think,  for  he  makes  use  of  the  rocky 
dust  that  he  gets  from  boring.  What  do  you  suppose 
he  does  with  it  ?  He  builds  a  chimney.  It's  a  fact. 
As  though  a  rock-borer  did  not  have  enough  to  do 
without  building,  as  well  as  boring!  But  this  Piddock 
seems  to  think  that  his  siphons  are  not  sufficiently 
protected,  and  so  he  builds  a  strong,  conical  chim- 
ney for  them.  How  wasteful  he  would  think  I  am  ! 
Throwing  away  rock-dust !  I  am  glad  he  is  not  here 
to  tell  me  how  economical  his  folks  always  are. 

And  if  I  tried  to  follow  his  example  and  build,  a 
pretty  chimney  I  should  make.  He  would  know  how 
to  do  it  without  failing,  and  he  might  make  fun  of  me. 
Oh!  I  am  very  glad  that  he  is  not  here.  I  am  going  to 
throw  all  the  rock-dust  I  get  into  this  puddle  of  sea-water. 


n8  A    P  HO  LAS'    PROTESTATIONS. 

At  least,  if  I  am  not  economical,  I  am  not  so  mean 
as  another  of  my  relatives.  His  name  is  Martesia, 
and  he  is  quite  small,  but  he  is  occasionally  a  nuisance. 
He  will  sometimes  bore  into  a  large  shell  while  its 
owner  is  living,  and  may  carry  the  burrow  so  nearly 
through  the  pearly  shell-lining  that  the  owner  has  to 
build  up  a  round  knob  to  protect  himself.  I  hope  I  do 
not  bother  other  folks  as  much  as  that. 


"DADDY"    AND    HIS    DIPTERA. 


Ly 

on  ol  COS' 


So  you  call  me 
"  Daddy  Longlegs,"  do 
you  ?  Well,  I  suppose 
my  legs  are  quite  long. 
But  I  have  been  so 
used  to  being  called  a 
"  leather-jacket  "  that  it 
seems  queer  to  have 
any  other  name.  How- 
ever, I  suppose  that  I 
must  remember  that  I 
am  no  longer  a  grub  in  the  ground,  and  that  is  the 
reason  why  my  name  is  changed.  When  I  was  a  grub 
I  had  no  feet,  and  I  was  soft  and  round  and  of  a  gray- 
ish color.  I  lived  on  the  tender  roots  of  grass  in  the 

119 


120 


DADDY"    AND  HIS  DIPTERA. 


meadow.  I  do  not  think  that  the  farmer  liked  me  at 
all,  for  he  did  not  admire  any  of  my  folks.  But  I 
should  like  to  know  why  I  had  not  as  much  right  as 
he  had  to  those  grass  roots.  He  used  to  grumble  a 
good  deal  about  us  "leather-jackets."  He  called  us 
that  because  of  the  leathery  skins  we  \vore. 

He  need  not  have  grumbled  so  much,  though.  I 
should  like  to  know  what  he  would  say  if  he  had  some 
other  kinds  of  Diptera  here.  You  know  that  we 

"Daddy  Longlegs," 
and  all  kinds  of 
flies,  belong  to  the 
Diptera,  because 
we  have  only  two 
wings,  instead  of  four,  like  the  butterflies. 

Well,  the  members  of  the  Diptera  that  I  meant  I 
should  like  to  have  the  farmer  see,  are  some  flies  that 
will  even  catch  honey-bees,  and  kill  them  in  spite  of 
the  stings.  And  that  farmer  has  three  hives  of  bees 
himself,  and  I  think  he  would  be  angry  enough  if  any 
such  flies  as  those  came  around  catching  his  bees. 
He  would  stop  thinking  about  the  "  leather-jackets  " 


LEATHER-JACKET. 


"DADDY"   AND  HIS   DIPTERA. 


121 


then.  The  flies  that  catch  bees  have  some  big,  beauti- 
ful Chinese  cousins  that  are  bright  yellow  and  black. 
But  there  is  another  one  of  the  Diptera  that  1  think 
the  farmer  would  be  even  more  angry  with  than  the 
bee-catcher,  and  that  is  the  "  Tsetse  fly."  Did  you 
ever  hear  about 
him?  He  and 
his  folks  live  in 
Africa,  and  they 
are  small  —  about 
as  large  as  com- 
mon house  flies  — 
and  you  would  never  think,  to  look  at  them,  that  they 
are  dangerous  creatures.  They  live  on  river  banks,  but 
they  will  often  stay  in  swarms  on  one  side  of  a  river, 
while  on  the  other  side  there  will  not  be  a  fly.  This 
Tsetse  fly  bites,  and  that  is  the  reason  why  I  think 
the  farmer  would  be  angry.  He  has  a  cunning  little 
red  calf  that  he  thinks  a  great  deal  of,  and  if  one  of 
those  Tsetse  flies  should  bite  that  calf  it  would  die, 
for  the  bite  is  poisonous  to  such  creatures  as  horses 
and  cows,  sheep  and  dogs.  The  fly  bites  persons,  too, 


122 


"DADDY"   AND  HIS  DIPTERA. 


but  it  does  not  harm  them  much,  for  the  pain  soon 
goes  away.  While  it  lasts  the  feeling  is  a  good  deal 
like  that  of  a  mosquito-bite. 

But  people  who  have  cattle  in  Africa  always  dread 
coming  to  any  place  where  the  Tsetse  flies  may  be. 
Of  course  people  in  such  districts  could  not  have  pet 

dogs,  but  folks  can 
keep  goats  and  pigs 
and  mules,  for  the 
bite  of  the  Tsetse  fly 
does  not  kill  them. 

The  native  Afri- 
/  cans  pretend  to  have 
roots  that  they  can 
pound  and  sprinkle 
on  the  hair  of  cattle,  and  in  this  way  prevent  the 
Tsetse  fly  from  biting  them.  But  this  is  all  nonsense, 
for  the  cattle  of  the  Africans  die  just  the  same  as  the 
cattle  of  other  people.  When  the  natives  are  obliged 
to  go  with  their  cattle  through  a  country  wrhere  the 
Tsetse  fly  is  known  to  live,  a  moonlight  night  in 
winter  is  chosen,  so  the  Tsetse  will  be  too  cold  to  bite. 


"DADDY"   AND   HIS  DIPTERA. 


123 


Another  fly  that  might  frighten  that  farmer  by  its 
appearance  is  one  that  lives  on  the  Molucca  Islands. 
This  fly  has  so  very  long  a  beak  that  it  looks  like  a 
sort  of  spear. 

But  there  is  one  of  the  Diptera  that  I  think  the 
farmer  ought  to  like,  and  that  is  a  fly  by  the  name  of 


SYRPHUS    PYRASTIN. 


Syrphus.  There  were  several  such  flies  around  here 
to-day,  and  the  reason  why  the  farmer  ought  to  like 
them  is,  that  their  larvas  eat  the  plant-lice,  or  Aphides, 
that  attack  his  vegetables.  The  Syrphus  fly  puts  an 
egg  in  the  midst  of  a  company  of  Aphides,  and  when 
that  egg  hatches  there  comes  out  of  it  a  little  green,  or 
green-and-purple,  worm  without  any  eyes  or  legs.  Of 
course  such  a  worm  could  not  travel  far  for  its  food, 
but  it  does  not  need  to.  It  is  in  the  midst  of  its  food. 


124  "DADDY"  AND  HIS  DIPTERA. 

The  worm  has  a  queer  sort  of  mouth,  with  a  little 
three-pronged  fork  to  it,  and  the  worm  catches  an 
Aphis  on  this  fork,  and  sucks  the  creature  nearly  dry. 
Then  the  worm  catches  another  Aphis.  By  and  by 
the  worm  has  grown  large  enough,  so  it  stops  eating 
and  sticks  itself  to  a  leaf;  its  body  draws  up  and  be- 
comes hard,  till  it  looks  like  a  little  bag.  And  it  is 
from  this  bag  that  a  Syrphus  fly,  spotted  with  gold 
and  looking  like  a  wasp,  comes  after  a  while. 


A   TALK    BY   AN    ANT. 


I  HAVE  been  to  see  a 
bat  He  was  a  little  fellow, 
about  six  inches  across  his 
wings.  I  found  that  bat 
before  the  cat  did.  I  was 
walking  along  the  path  by 
the  rockery,  and  I  found 
that  bat  lying  dead  in  the 
way.  I  do  not  know  what 
had  ailed  him,  but  I  went 
up  and  peeped  into  his  almost  shut  mouth.  Then  I 
looked  at  a  foot  of  his.  It  seemed  like  a  human  be- 
ing's wrinkled  hand  with  the  fingers  all  the  same 
length,  and  the  finger-nails  all  allowed  to  grow  long 
and  kept  whittled  to  points. 

125 


THE    BAT'S    FAVORITE    POSITION. 


126  A    TALK  BY  AN  ANT. 

Maybe  that  boy  over  the  fence  killed  the  bat  some 
way.  I  do  not  know.  I  was  thinking  of  going  and 
telling  the  rest  of  the  ants  in  my  hill  about  what  I 
had  found,  when  a  cat  and  a  woman  and  a  little  girl 
came  along. 

"Why,  Pussy,  what  is  that  you  have?"  asked  the 
woman. 

She  took  up  the  bat. 

"Why,  it's  a  bat,  isn't  it?"  she  said.  "I  believe 
I  will  put  him  into  some  ants'  nest,  and  let  them 
skeletonize  him,  if  they  will.  I'd  like  to  keep  the 
skeleton  for  my  class.  No,  Pussy,  you  cannot  have 
this  bat.  Why  !  here  is  an  ant  on  it.  Shoo  !  " 

And  she  blew  me  off. 

I  fell  to  the  ground.  The  woman  drove  the  cat 
away,  too.  •  She  did  not  want  the  cat  to  know  where 
the  bat  was  to  be  buried. 

I  felt  quite  bewildered  by  my  tumble,  but  I  re- 
covered my  senses  and  started  home.  When  I  arrived 
there  I  found  everything  in  confusion.  That  woman 
had  chosen  my  ant-hill  and  dug  into  our  nest  and  put 
the  bat  there.  We  ants  would  not  have  cared  so 


A    TALK  BY  AN  ANT. 


129 


much  for  that,  but  she  had  dug  out  a  great  number  of 

small  white   ant-pupae,  the    children   of   our   nest.     I 

found    a   great    many   of   our 

folks  running  around   seizing 

the    ant-children    and   rushing 

away    as    fast    as    possible  to 

hide     them.      We     were     all 

dreadfully  worried  for  fear  the 

children  should  not  be  safely 

put  away. 

The  ant-children  are  in  dif- 
ferent stages  of  growth.     In  some  of  the  pupae  the 
limbs  and  the  head  of  the  coming  ant  can  be  seen, 

under  a  microscope,  but  all  pure 
white.  Others  show  yet  no  limbs, 
and  might  easily  be  called  "  ant- 
eggs,"  as  some  people  who  do 
not  kno\v  any  better  do  call  them. 
Of  course  the  ant-children  cannot 
run  around  yet.  They  are  about 
three-thirty-seconds  of  an  inch  long,  and  their  brown- 
ish eyes  contrast  plainly  with  their  white  bodies.  One 


130  A    TALK  BY  AN  ANT. 

can  see  the  numerous  dots  that  compose  each  eye. 
There  are  fifty  facets,  or  corneas,  in  the  eye  of  an  ant, 
though  one  kind  of  ant  is  said  to  have  about  a 
thousand. 

I  do  not  like  it  at  all  to  have  that  woman  die  into 

o 

our  ant-hill  so.  There  might  be  some  excuse  for  her 
if  she  believed  what  some  folks  thought  once.  There 
was  a  knight  in  old  times  who  was  known  as  Sir 
John  Maundeville.  He  was  quite  a  traveler,  and  he 
wrote  a  narrative  of  his  travels ;  he  wrote  in  this  all 
the  wild  stories  he  pleased,  and  he  told  about  an 
island  called  Taprobane  where  there  were  great  hills  of 
gold  that  the  ants  kept  full  diligently.  If  that  woman 
believed  in  finding  gold  in  ant-hills  nowadays,  I  should 
not  so  much  blame  her  for  digging  into  our  house. 

But  we  ants  have  had  a  great  deal  said  about  us 
that  is  not  so.  There  was  an  old  Greek  historian, 
Ctesias,  that  said  that  there  were  ants  that  were  as 
large  as  foxes.  I  don't  believe  he  ever  saw  any.  And 
then  I  heard  once  what  another  man,  Herodotus,  said 
about  ants.  He  was  talking  about  a  sandy  desert 
somewhere,  and  said  he:  "  In  this  desert,  then,  and  in 


A    TALK  BY  AN  ANT.  131 

the  sand,  there  are  ants,  in  size  somewhat  less  indeed 
than  dogs,  but  larger  than  foxes.  Some  of  them  are 
in  the  possession  of  the  king  of  the  Persians,  which 
were  taken  there.  These  ants,  forming  their  habita- 
tions under  ground,  heap  up  the  sand,  as  the  ants  in 
Greece  do,  and  in  the  same  manner;  and  they  are  very 
like  them  in  shape.  The  sand  that  is  heaped  up  is 
mixed  with  gold.  The  Indians,  therefore,  go  to  the 
desert  to  get  this  sand,  each  man  having  three 
camels. 

"  When  the  Indians  arrive  at  the  spot,  having 
sacks  with  them,  they  fill  these  with  the  sand,  and 
return  with  all  possible  expedition;  for  the  ants,  as 
the  Persians  say,  immediately  discovering  them  by  the 
smell,  pursue  them,  and  they  are  equaled  in  swiftness 
by  no  other  animal,  so  that  if  the  Indians  did  not  get 
the  start  of  them  while  the  ants  are  assembling,  not  a 
man  of  them  could  be  saved." 

There !  What  do  you  think  of  that  story  ? 
Wouldn't  you  like  to  see  an  Indian,  with  three  camels 
and  some  sacks,  fleeing  before  a  pack  of  ants  "  larger 
than  foxes  "  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  folks  must  have 


I32  A    TALK  BY  AN  ANT. 

known  very  little  about  ants,  to  tell  such  a  story  as 
that. 

People  in  old  times  used  to  have  another  queer 
idea.  They  thought  that  they  could  get  a  stone  that 
would  keep  other  folks  from  seeing  them  as  they 
walked  around. 

"  Take  water,"  said  an  old  writer,  "  and  poure  it 
upon  an  ant-hill,  and  looke  immediately  after,  and  you 
shall  finde  a  stone  of  divers  colours  sente  from  the 
faerie.  This  beare  in  thy  righte  hande,  and  you  shall 
goe  invisible." 

That  woman  who  dug  into  our  ant-hill  has  never 
tried  this  plan.  I  am  sure  I  hope  she  never  will. 
Perhaps  she  does  not  believe  in  any  stone  that  will 
make  her  "  goe  invisible."  Neither  do  I  believe  in  it, 
and  I  hope  she  will  not  come  pouring  any  water 
around  here.  It  is  bad  enough  to  have  to  remedy  the 
evil  she  has  done  now,  digging  into  our  house  with 
her  spoon,  without  having  to  be  half-drowned,  too. 
But  she  is  right  about  one  thing.  We  ants  can  clean 
small  creatures  so  as  to  leave  their  skeletons  in  good 
shape.  People  can  wire  the  bones  together  afterward. 


A    TALK  BY  AN  ANT.  133 

She  says  she  wants  the  bat's  skeleton  for  her  class,  so 
I  suppose  she  does  not  have  any  nonsensical  idea  such 
as  was  formerly  told  about  the  bones  of  a  green  frog 
that  had  been  eaten  by  ants.  It  was  said  that  if  the 
bones  of  such  a  frog  were  taken,  those  on  the  left  side 
would  provoke  hatred,  and  those  on  the  right  side 
would  excite  love. 

I  hope  that  cat  will  not  discover  where  the  bat  is, 
and  come  here  to  dig  it  up.  Last  September  when 
the  winged  ants  were  rising  from  their  holes,  the  air 
in  spots  was  alive  with  the  creatures ;  that  cat  thought 
she  would  catch  ants  and  eat  them.  Perhaps  she  did 
not  think  that  the  fluttering  things  were  ants.  Most 
of  the  ants  she  had  seen  did  not  have  wings. 

Well,  she  caught  some,  but  I  do  not  think  that 
Tabby  chewed  more  than  two  or  three  or  so.  She 
went  and  sat  on  a  board,  and  I  think  she  let  the  ants 
alone  after  that,  although  they  were  flying  behind  her. 
We  are  quite  protected  from  danger  sometimes  by 
the  way  we  taste.  Very  few  insects  like  to  eat  us. 
Spiders -do,  though,  sometimes. 


ANOTHER   VOICE    FROM    A    MENAGERIE. 


Now,  while 
that  hyena  was 
talking  about  the 
animals  in  this 
place,  why  in  the 
world  didn't  he 
mention  me?  I 
am  sure  I  am  as 
worthy  of  being 
talked  about  as  any  of  the  other  animals,  and,  if  no 
one  is  going  to  talk  about  me,  I  shall  talk  about  my- 
self. I  know  I  am  not  very  pretty,  but  then,  think  of 
my  stomachs ! 

Almost  every  one  has  heard  about  a  camel's  three 
stomachs  and  the  water-cells  in  them,  but  all  people 


THE   ARABIAN   CAMEL. 


134 


ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A    MENAGERIE. 


135 


cannot  remember  that  in  an  Arabian  camel  like  myself 
the  cells  will  hold  a  whole  gallon  and  a  half  of  water. 
But  sometimes  it  is  very  unfortunate  for  us  to  have 
such  stomachs,  for  on  long  marches  across  the  desert, 
the  Arabs,  when  without  water,  will  occasionally  kill 
some  camels  to  get  at  their 
cells. 

But,  beside  our  queer 
stomachs,  our  noses  are 
made  in  a  strange  way. 
You  know  it  is  very  un- 
pleasant indeed  to  have  sand 
blow  up  your  nose,  but  we 
camels  are  so  made  that  when  the  sand-blasts  come 
we  can  shut  up  our  noses  with  some  little  valves  in- 
side. Don't  you  think  that  the  One  who  made  us 
camels  was  very  kind  to  fix  our  noses  so  that  we 
should  not  be  suffering  all  the  time? 

Our  feet  are  made  so  they  are  just  right,  too, 
for  we  have  very  thick  soles,  so  that  the  hot  sand  of 
the  deserts  cannot  burn  us.  Altogether  I  think  we 
camels  ought  to  be  very  thankful  that  we  are  made  so 


WATER-CELLS    OF  THE   CAMEL'S 
STOMACHS. 


136  ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 

beautifully.  Some  of  the  old  Jewish  rabbis  did  not 
think  we  were  very  thankful  though,  for  they  had  a 
saying,  "The  camel  desired  horns,  and  his  ears  were 
taken  from  him."  I  think,  though,  that  the  rabbis 
made  up  that  saying  to  tell  to  people  who  were  grum- 
bling and  who  ought  to  have  remembered  how  much 
worse  off  they  would  have  been  if  the  good  they  had 
were  taken  away  from  them.  Most  people  are  not 
nearly  thankful  enough  for  their  good  things.  It  is 
so  much  easier  to  grumble  than  to  be  thankful. 

Do  you  see  that  little  fellow  over  there  that  looks 
somewhat  like  me,  only  he  has  no  hump?  That  is 
my  South  American  cousin,  the  Llama.  In  their 
native  country  llamas  are  used  for  carrying  loads  of 
silver  from  the  mines  down  the  narrow  trails  of  the 
mountains. 

The  llamas  have  Indian  drivers  who  are  often  very 
kind  to  them.  If  a  llama  is  tired  and  falls  behind  the 
others,  or  lies  down,  the  Indian  driver  will  go  back 
and  talk  to  it  and  try  to  make  it  forget  how  tired  it  is. 
Sometimes,  however,  the  llamas,  when  very  much  hur- 
ried, become  angry  and  spit  at  the  Indians.  Some 


ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 


137 


people  say  that  such  spittle  is  poisonous,  but  I  do 
not  believe  that  is  true.  Any  way,  Cousin  Llama  over 
there  has  never  poisoned  any  one  since  he  has  been 
here. 

A  man  was  looking  at  me  the  other  day,  and  he 
said  that  a  bigger 
camel  than  I  am 
had  been  found  in 
Hindostan.  Unfor- 
tunately I  shall 
never  see  that 
camel,  for  long  ago 
he  turned  to  stone, 
and  he  is  now  a 
"fossil,"  as  that 
man  called  him. 

That  hyena  that  talked  so  much  did  not  tell  you 
all  that  I  know  about  his  folks.  I  suspect  that  he 
was  ashamed  to  have  you  know  how  greedy  his  rela- 
tives are.  This  is  the  thing  I  know :  Once,  when  a 
great  traveler  named  Livingstone  was  in  Africa,  he 
was  much  troubled  by  a  large  number  of  hyenas  that 


THE  LLAMA. 


138  ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 

came  near  his  camp  and  laughed  very  loudly  for  two 
whole  nights.  Livingstone  knew  that  the  natives  he 
had  with  him  thought  that  hyenas  had  some  intelli- 
gence, and  so  he  said  to  the  men,  "  What  are  the 
hyenas  laughing  at?" 

And  the  men  answered  that  they  thought  the 
hyenas  were  laughing  because  they  knew  that  Living- 
stone and  his  company  could  not  eat  all  the  provisions 
and  plenty  would  be  left  for  the  hyenas  to  eat. 

But,  whatever  they  laughed  at,  1  am  sure  that  Liv- 
ingstone must  have  wished  that  they  would  keep  still 
nights  and  let  him  go  to  sleep. 

But  there  is  no  politeness  about  a  hyena.  In  fact 
I  do  not  very  much  like  any  of  those  animals  in  that 
row  of  cages  yonder.  I  cannot  see  what  makes  them 
scream,  and  lash  their  tails,  and  yell,  and  rush  from 
one  side  of  their  cages  to  another,  every  time  that 
keeper  goes  by  with  the  meat-cart.  Meat  does  not 
look  so  very  good  to  me. 

It  is  a  fine  thing  that  those  beasts  are  shut  up.  I 
am  afraid  that  if  one  of  them  were  out  he  might 
attack  me.  There  is  that  cage  holding  the  cruel  Wolf, 


ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MENAGERIE.  139 

next  to  the  Coyote-cage.  I  have  watched  that  wolf 
enough  to  know  that  the  old  Greeks  and  Romans 
were  wrong.  You  know  that  hundreds  of  years  ago, 
when  my  great-grandfathers  were  traveling  the  deserts, 
the  Greeks  had  a  belief  that  if  a  man  and  a  wolf  met, 
and  the  wolf  saw  the  man  before  the  man  saw  him, 
the  man  would  become  dumb.  And  so  the  Greeks 
had  a  saying,  "  To  see  a  wolf,"  wrhich  meant,  <(  to  be 
struck  dumb."  Well,  I  have  watched  people  going  by 
that  wolf's  cage,  and  even  if  they  did  not  look  at  the 
wolf  and  he  did  look  at  them,  yet  the  folks  went 
straight  on  talking  and  never  became  dumb  at  all. 

Maybe  most  of  the  folks  who  go  by  that  cage 
never  think  of  it,  but,  about  a  thousand  years  ago,  the 
people  over  in  England  were  so  much  troubled  by 
wolves  that  the  Saxon  king,  Edgar,  said  that  every 
criminal  who  wrould  kill  a  certain  number  of  wolves 
should  go  free,  and  the  Welsh  people  saved  themselves 
from  having  to  pay  a  tax  of  gold  and  silver,  by  killing 
three  hundred  wolves,  instead. 

It  was  high  time  that  something  of  the  sort  should 
have  been  done  in  England  then,  for  in  the  reign  of  a 


140  ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 

king  who  ruled  a  little  time  before  Edgar,  and  whose 
name  was  Athelstane,  the  wolves  were  so  numerous 
that  a  refuge  had  to  be  built  in  Yorkshire  for  such 
travelers  as  were  attacked  by  the  animals.  The  old 
Saxon  name  for  January  used  to  be  "  Wolf-moneth," 
because  the  wolves  were  hungry  and  troublesome  in 
the  winter.  I  am  glad  that  those  wolves  are  killed 
now,  and  I  should  not  object  to  seeing  that  old  fellow 
in  that  cage  killed,  too. 

Next  to  the  Wolf-cage  is  the  Tiger-cage,  you  see. 
Neighbor  Tiger  is  a  treacherous  fellow.  He  says  that 
the  people  of  India  are  very  much  afraid  of  his  folks, 
so  much  afraid  as  to  hardly  be  willing  to  mention  the 
word  "  Tiger."  The  people  usually  speak  of  him 
either  as  "  the  beast,"  or  else  will  not  name  him  at  all. 

Next  is  the  Monkey-cage,  and  I  rather  like  the 
creatures  in  there.  I  have  heard  that  some  of  the 
people  of  Borneo,  the  Dyaks,  think  that  their  long- 
nosed  monkeys  used  to  be  men.  The  Dyaks  say  that 
the  men  did  not  like  to  pay  taxes,  and  so  they  took  to 
the  woods  and  became  monkeys.  But  you  need  not 
believe  this  story. 


ANOTHER    VOICE   FROM  A    MENAGERIE. 


I  think  that  monkeys  do  look  a  little  like  folks,  and 
I  know  that  when  some  missionaries  went  to  Africa 
they  found  that  the  people  all  along  part  of  the  west 
coast  believed  that  the  gorillas  were  real  people. 

The  Hindoos,  in  India,  have  a  great  many  mon- 
keys that  are  called  sacred  by  the  people.  The  creat- 
ures are  Hoonuman  monkeys, 
and  they  have  black  hands 
and  feet.  The  Hindoos  say 
that  the  way  the  sacred  mon- 
keys came  to  have  black 
hands  and  feet  was  this :  - 

Long  years  ago,  there  was 
a  good  Hoonuman  monkey 
that  noticed  that  the  people 
of  India  did  not  have  the 
fruit  called  the  mango.  Did  you  ever  see  a  mango? 
It  is  red  or  yellow  outside,  and  soft  and  juicy  inside. 
Well,  this  kind-hearted  monkey  determined  that  the 
Hindoos  should  have  some  of  this  fruit  and  be  able 
to  raise  it  themselves.  So  the  monkey  went  on  a 
journey  over  to  the  island  of  Ceylon. 


THE    MANGO. 


144  ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A    MENAGERIE. 

In  that  island  there  was  a  garden  owned  by  a 
giant,  and  the  monkey  went  into  this  garden  and  stole 
some  mangos  and  carried  them  back  to  the  Hindoos. 

But  the  monkey  was  not  satisfied.  Although  he 
had  been  kind  to  the  Hindoos,  yet  he  hated  the  people 
of  Ceylon,  and  he  determined  that  he  would  burn 
them  up.  He  took  a  lighted  tar-barrel,  and  was  going 
to  set  fire  to  the  whole  island  of  Ceylon,  but  some 
way  the  barrel  was  tied  to  the  monkey's  tail,  and  in- 
stead of  hurting  the  island  at  all  he  only  succeeded 
in  burning  his  own  hands  and  feet  so  badly  that 
they  turned  black,  which  was  good  enough  for  him,  I 
think.  If  a  person  will  try  to  injure  other  people, 
something  bad  almost  always  comes  to  him  himself. 
But  the  Hindoos  say  this  is  the  reason  why  their  holy 
monkeys  have  black  hands  and  feet. 

I  am  sure  that  this  story  is  not  true,  and  I  should 
think  that  the  Hindoos  would  be  ashamed  to  tell 
about  their  sacred  monkeys  being  so  wicked  as  to  try 
to  burn  up  people. 

The  people  of  India  say  that  it  is  very  unlucky 
for  a  person  to  build  his  house  on  the  spot  where  a 


ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MENAGERIE.  145 

Hoonuman  monkey  has  been  killed,  and  if  a  person 
does  build  there  he  will  die.  So,  out  of  respect  to  this 
nonsense,  whenever  the  natives  build  houses  some 
one  of  the  wise  men  has  to  be  called  upon  to  tell  by 
his  wisdom  whether  a  monkey's  bones  are  to  be  found 
on  the  spot  where  the  house  is  to  be  built ;  and  if 
the  wise  man  says  that  a  sacred  monkey  has  once  died 
there,  then  the  house  must  be  built  somewhere  else. 
And  so  afraid  of  bad  luck  are  those  people  that  not 
one  of  them  will*  ever  acknowledge  having  seen  a  dead 
monkey. 

The  people  of  the  island  of  Ceylon  have  sacred 
monkeys,  too,  and  the  people  pretend  to  believe  that 
the  body  of  a  dead  monkey  of  that  kind  has  never 
been  found  in  the  forests.  And  there  is  a  proverb 
among  those  people,  "  He  who  has  seen  a  white  crow, 
the  nest  of  the  piddy  bird,  a  straight  cocoanut-tree,  or 
a  dead  monkey,  is  certain  to  live  forever." 

Do  you  know  that  monkeys  hate  snakes  ?  Once 
a  naturalist,  Mr.  Darwin,  took  a  stuffed  snake  and 
carried  it  to  a  place  where  a  number  of  monkeys  were 
kept.  They  were  greatly  excited,  and  gathered  around 


146  ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A    MENAGERIE. 

staring  at  the  snake.  In  the  cage  was  a  little  wooden 
ball  with  which  the  monkeys  had  often  played,  but 
they  became  so  nervous  from  looking  at  the  snake 
that,  when  the  ball  happened  to  roll  a  little,  away 
rushed  all  the  monkeys  greatly  frightened. 

Another  time  the  same  man  put  a  live  snake  into 
a  paper  bag,  and,  closing  the  top  of  the  bag,  put  it 
down  where  the  monkeys  could  go  to  it.  After  a  little 
while,  one  of  the  monkeys  saw  the  bag,  and  came  to 
find  out  what  was  in  it.  As  soon  as  the  monkey  had 
seen  what  was  there  he  rushed  away,  but,  in  spite  of 
the  supposed  danger,  the  other  monkeys  could  not 
endure  it  not  to  come  and  peep  at  their  enemy  in  the 
bag.  Monkey  after  monkey  came  and  peeped  at  the 
horrifying  sight. 

I  once  heard,  too,  of  a  baboon  that  could  be  made  * 
very  angry  by  his  keeper's  taking  a  letter  and  reading 
it  to  him.  I  do  not  know  why  it  should  have  made 
the  baboon  so  angry,  but  Mr.  Darwin  saw  this  monkey 
once  when  he  was  being  read  to,  and  the  baboon  be- 
came so  angry  that  he  bit  his  own  leg  until  the  blood 
flowed  from  it. 


ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A    MENAGERIE.  147 

Baboons  were  thought  a  great  deal  of  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  and  were  brought  over  to  Europe  from 
Africa  and  sold.  No  gentleman  was  thought  to  be  in 
fashion  who  did  not  o\vn  an  ape.  The  apes  were 
dressed  and  taught  to  be  polite,  and  sometimes  they 
were  allowed  to  come  to  feasts  with  the  fine  folks. 
There  used  to  be  a  queer  old  story  told  about  an  ape 
and  the  mischief  he  did  once  when  he  was  dressed  like 
a  man.  I  do  not  think  that  the  story  is  true,  though. 
It  would  be  a  sad  thing  to  have  a  man  killed  on 
account  of  an  ape's  actions.  The  tale  is  named  this 
way,  "  Of  the  Welcheman  that  delyvered  the  letter  to 
the  Ape." 

The  story  is  that  once  a  man  was  arrested  for 
some  crime.  NCKV  this  man  had  been  a  servant  of  a 
gentleman,  and  when  the  gentleman  heard  what  the 
trouble  was,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  chief  justice  ask- 
ing him  to  let  the  servant  go  free.  The  gentleman 
gave  this  letter  to  a  Welshman,  and  told  him  to  carry 
it  to  the  chief  justice  and  bring  an  answer  back. 

The  old  story  says,  "  This  Welcheman  came  to  the 
chefe  justyce  place,  arid  at  the  gate  saw  an  Ape 


148  ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 

syttynge  there  in  a  cote  made  for  hym,  as  they  used  to 
apparell  Apes  for  disporte.  This  Welcheman  dyd  of 
his  cappe,  and  made  cortyse  to  the  Ape,  and  said,  '  My 
master  recommendeth  him  to  the  lord  your  father,  and 
sendyth  him  here  a  letter.' 

"  This  Ape  toke  this  letter  and  opened  it,  and  lokyd 
upon  the  man,  makynge  many  mockes  and  moyes  as 
the  propertyes  of  Apes  is  to  do. 

"  This  Welcheman,  because  he  understood  him 
not,  came  agayne  to  his  master,  accordynge  to  his 
commandes,  and  told  hym  he  delyvered  the  letter  unto 
the  lorde  chief  justice  sonne,  who  was  at  the  gate  in  a 
furred  cote. 

"  Anone  hys  master  asked  hym  what  answer  he 
brought. 

"  The  man  sayd  that  he  gave  him  an  answer,  but 
it  was   French  or  Laten,  for  he  understode   him  not.* 
'  But,  syr/  quote  he,  *  ye  need  not  to  fere,  for  I  saw  in 
his  countenance  so  muche  that  I  warrent  you  he  wyll 
do  your  errand  to  my  lorde  his  father.' 

"  This  gentleman  in  truste  thereof  made  not  any 
further  suite,  for  lacke  thereof  his  servant  that  had 


ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MENAGERIE.  149 

done  the  felonye,  within  a  month  after,  was  rayned  at 
the  king's  bench  and  corte,  and  afterwards  hanged." 

There  is  one  kind  of  South  American  monkey 
called  the  Capuchin,  that  has  its  face  ornamented  with 
a  beard.  The  Capuchin  is  a  very  strong,  fierce  mon- 
key, and  it  is  very  hard  to  tame  him.  One  af  the 
things  that  he  is  the  most  particular  about  is  his 
beard.  He  cannot  bear  to  get  it  wet,  and  so  when  he 
drinks,  instead  of  putting  his  mouth  down  to  a  stream, 
he  takes  up  some  water  in  his  hand,  lays  his  head 
over  one  side  on  his  shoulder,  and  drinks  out  of  his 
hand  very  slowly  and  carefully  so  as  not  to  wet  his 
beard.  A  traveler  once  said  that  if  a  person  wanted 
to  put  this  kind  of  a  monkey  into  the  greatest  possible 
rage,  all  he  would  have  to  do  would  be  to  throw  some 
\vater  on  the  Capuchin's  beard.  The  person  who  did 
that  would  find  out  that  such  an  act  is  an  unpardon- 
able sin  in  the  monkey's  sight. 

You  see,  I  hear  a  great  deal  in  this  menagerie. 
There  is  a  kind  of  bear  that  I  should  like  to  see.  He 
is  not  in  this  menagerie.  His  name  is  the  "  Specta- 
cled Bear."  He  is  called  that  because  although  the 


ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MEXAGERIE. 


greater  part  of  his  face  is  black,  yet  around  his  eyes 
he  has  two  light-colored  rings  that  make  him  look 
exactly  as  if  he  were  wearing  a  pair  of  goggles. 
Those  who  have  seen  him  say  that  he  is  very  funny- 
looking. 

Indians  tell  queer  stories  about  bears,  sometimes. 

The  Euroc  Indians 
in  Northern  Cali- 
fornia are  afraid  of 
forest -demons  that 
are  supposed  to  live 
in  the  forests  and 
take  the  form  of 
bears  that  shoot 
arrows  at  travelers 
that  are  out  by  night.  But  of  course  that  is  not  a 
true  story  at  all.  There  are  no  such  things  as  forest- 
demons,  and  I  should  have  thought  that  the  Indians 
would  have  found  that  out,  long  ago.  Some  of  the 
California  Indians  used  to  burn  their  dead  to  prevent 
them  from  turning  into  grizzly  bears.  It  is  sad  to 
think  what  foolish  ideas  the  Indians  have  about  such 


ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 


things.  Some  of  the  Indians  near  Trinity  River  used 
to  believe  in  a  sort  of  spirit  called  Omaha  that  had  the 
shape  of  a  grizzly  bear.  He  could  not  be  seen,  but 
the  Indians  believed  that  he  went  about  everywhere 
bringing  sickness  and  trouble  to  men. 

There  were  two  other  enemies  that  those  Indians 
believed  in.  One  was  named  Makalay,  that  moved 
with  great  leaps  like 
a  kangaroo  and  had 
a  horn  like  a  unicorn. 
If  any  human  being 
saw  Makalay  the 
sight  was  thought  to 
bring  death.  I  do  not 
think  many  people  could  have  died  from  that  cause. 
How  could  they  when  there  was  no  Makalay  to  see  ? 

Then  there  was  a  third  dreadful  creature,  called 
Kalicknateck,  that  the  Indians  thought  was  a  great 
bird  that  sat  on  top  of  a  mountain  and  when  hungry 
would  sweep  down  over  the  ocean,  catch  up  a  great 
whale,  carry  it  to  the  mountain,  and  then  eat  the 
whole  whale  for  a  single  meal. 


RUKH'S    EGG. 


152  ANOTHER    VOICE  FROM  A   MENAGERIE. 

That  reminds  me  of  a  story  I  once  heard  of  an- 
other bird  that  the  fables  of  old  times  called  the 
Rukh.  A  traveler  named  Marco  Polo  told  of  the  bird, 
and  people  said  that  the  sound  of  its  flying  was  like 
loud  thunder,  and  the  bird  was  so  strong  that  it  would 
seize  an  elephant  in  its  claws  and  carry  him  high  into 
the  air. 

It  seems  to  me  that,  if  people  really  believed  in 
that  Rukh,  they  must  have  dreaded  seeing  any  such 
creature  come  swooping  from  the  sky.  But  I  can 
hardly  think  that  many  persons  would  believe  very 
sincerely  in  such  a  bird. 


A    SHREW'S     STATEMENTS. 


MY   NOSE   IS  TOO   POINTED   FOR   A   MOUSE. 


Now,  little  boy, 
you  are  mistaken.  I 
don't  care  if  I  do  look 
like  a  mouse,  I  am 
not  one.  My  nose  is 
too  pointed  for  that ; 
don't  you  see  ? 
I  am  a  Shrew  ;  no  relative  at  all  of  the  mice.  My 
relatives  are  the  Moles  and  the  Hedgehogs ;  that  is, 
we  are  all  classed  under  the  "  insect-eaters,"  and  we 
sleep  in  the  daytime  and  go  our  at  night  to  hunt  food. 
We  shrews  live  under  rubbish,  or  in  holes  in  the 
ground.  Some  of  us  like  the  water  very  well. 

People  used  to  dislike  us  because  they  thought  we 
c!id  mischief.     The  Italians  had  an  idea  that  the  bite 

153 


154  A    SHREWS    STATEMENTS. 

of  a  shrew  was  poisonous,  and  the  Roman  people  used 
to  call  a  shrew  mus  araneus,  or  a  "  spider-mouse," 
because  they  thought  that  a  shrew  threw  poison  into 
its  bite,  like  a  spider. 

French  and  English  people  disliked  us,  too,  be- 
cause they  thought  that  we  made  horses  and  cattle 
paralyzed,  and  some  of  the  ignorant  folks  even  went 
so  far  as  to  say  that,  if  a  shrew  ran  over  an  animal's 
foot,  the  animal  felt  great  pain.  So,  when  a  horse,  or 
cow,  or  sheep,  that  had  been  out  in  the  fields,  was 
found  to  have  a  numbness  in  its  limbs,  the  people 
would  say  that  it  was  "  shrew-struck." 

And  this  idea  brought  much  trouble  to  us  poor 
shrews,  for  the  cure  for  an  animal  that  was  "  shrew- 
struck  "  was  thought  to  be  a  switching  with  a  branch 
of  a  "  shrew-ash,"  as  it  was  called.  Now  a  shrew-ash 
was  made  in  this  way.  An  ash-tree  was  chosen,  and 
with  an  auger  a  hole  was  bored  deep  into  the  tree's 
trunk.  Next,  a  poor  shrew  was  caught  and  put  alive 
into  the  hole,  and  then  the  hole  was  plugged,  and  the 
unfortunate  shrew  was  left  to  die  of  hunger.  This 
cruel  act  was  supposed  to  give  power  to  the  ash-tree 


A    SHREW'S   STATEMENTS. 


157 


to  cure  "  shrew-struck  "  cattle,  and  whenever  afterward 
a  horse  or  a  cow  was  supposed  to  be  troubled  in  this 
way,  a  person  would  go  to  the  "  shrew-ash,"  pull  off 
one  of  its  branches  and  gently  switch  the  animal  with 
it.  This  was  said 
to  immediately 
take  away  all  pain 
from  the  animal. 

But  I  feel  very 
sorry  that  so  silly 
an  idea  should 
have  caused  any  of 
my  relatives  to  be 
starved  to  death. 
That  is  worse  than  being  killed  by  a  cat,  because  a  cat 
does  kill  one  after  a  little  time,  but  it  must  take  a 
good  while  to  starve  to  death.  I  never  liked  cats, 
though,  and  I  am  -surprised  to  see  how  many  people 
prefer  them  to  us  shrews.  Why,  I  heard  the  other 
day  of  a  man  who  spent  a  good  part  of  his  time 
making  pictures  of  cats.  His  name  was  Gottfried 
Mind,  and  he  lived  in  Switzerland  quite  a  while  ago. 


THE   WATER    SHREW. 


158  A    SHREW'S   STATEMENTS. 

But  although  he  made  so  many  pictures  of  cats, 
they  were  all  different,  and  they  were  so  natural  that 
they  really  looked  as  if  they  were  alive,  and  I  think 
a  shrew  that  was  bright  enough  to  notice  a  picture 
would  not  have  liked  those  Gottfried  made. 

He  painted  the  pictures  of  so  many  cats  and 
kittens  that  he  was  called  the  "  Raphael  of  Cats,"  and 
travelers  came  to  see  him  and  get  some  of  his  cat- 
pictures. 

But,  one  year,  a  thing  occurred  that  was  very 
dreadful,  according  to  Gottfried's  ideas.  Some  of  the 
people  of  the  to\vn  of  Berne  became  frightened  about 
some  signs  of  madness  that  had  shown  itself  among 
the  cats,  and  so,  for  fear  that  the  creatures  should 
really  go  mad  and  bite  people,  the  magistrates  of 
Berne  gave  orders  that  the  pussies  should  be  killed. 

That  was  an  alarming  order  to  poor  Gottfried. 
lie  had  a  pet  cat  named  Minette,  and  he  managed  to 
hide  her,  but  alas !  eight  hundred  other  cats  were  put 
to  death. 

Gottfried  was  dreadfully  shocked,  and  it  is  said 
that  he  never  became  wholly  comforted.  But,  after 


A    SHREW'S   STATEMENTS. 


159 


the  killing-time  was  over,  he  went  to  work  harder  than 
ever  making  pictures  of  cats,  and  the  next  winter  he 
went  into  the  business  of  cutting  chestnuts  into  the 
shape  of  cats.  He  made  chestnut-cats  that  looked  so 
cunning  that  people 
bought  them  as  fast  as 
he  could  make  them. 
But  I  have  never 
heard  of  a  painter 
who  cared  very  much 
about  making  pict- 
ures of  shrews.  I 
do  not  see  why,  either, 
for  I  am  sure  we  arc 
very  cunning.  We 
are  not  very  pretty 
when  we  are  babies, 
though,  for  then  we 
are  blind  and  without  fur.  If  a  painter  wanted  to  keep 
shrews  for  models  he  would  have  to  have  a  separate 
cage  for  each  one,  for  I  am  sorry  to  say  we  are  quarrel- 
some, and  kill  one  another  when  shut  up  together. 


GOTTFRIED    MIND'S    FAVORITE. 


160  A    SHREW'S   STATEMENTS. 

I  have  heard  that  not  only  painters  have  liked  cats, 
but  musicians  have  done  so,  too.  It  seems  strange 
that  our  enemies  should  be  so  honored  and  we  neg- 
lected. For  instance,  I  heard  a  story  the  other  day 
about  a  cat  that  made  a  piece  of  music.  I  do  not 
mean  that  the  cat  made  it  all,  but  she  only  started  it. 
There  was  a  musician  named  Dominico  Scarlatti,  who 
had  a  favorite  cat  that  used  to  sit  on  his  shoulder 
while  he  was  playing.  And  so  fond  was  this  cat  of 
being  patted  that  as  soon  as  Scarlatti  stopped  playing 
the  cat  would  jump  down  on  the  keys  of  the  instru- 
ment and  try  to  attract  the  musician's  attention. 

One  day  some  of  Scarlatti's  scholars  \vere  talking 
together  about  a  kind  of  musical  composition  called  a 
"  fugue,"  and  one  of  the  scholars  said  that  he  thought 
it  was  very  hard  to  find  anything  for  the  basis  of  such 
music. 

Just  then  Scarlatti's  cat  jumped  on  the  keys,  and 
the  cat's  paws  struck  five  notes.  The  musician  said 
that  he  did  not  agree  with  the  scholar  at  all,  and  to 
prove  to  him  how  easy  it  is  to  take  any  notes  for  a 
foundation  for  such  music,  Scarlatti  took  just  the  five 


A    SHREW'S  STATEMENTS.  '   161 

notes  that  his  cat  had  struck  and  made  a  piece  of 
music  out  of  them.  That  piece  of  music  is  called 
"  The  Cat's  Fugue."  I  have  heard,  too,  of  another 

musician    who    composed    some    music    called    "The 

t 

Bees'  Wedding,"  but  I  have  not  yet  heard  of  any  one 
who  has  made  any  musical  composition  regarding 
shrews.  I  do  not  think  we  have  been  appreciated  and 
honored  as  we  ought  to  have  been. 


"SEA-PORK"   AND    ITS   CHANGES. 


A  MAN  was  walking  by  this 
shore  a  while  ago.  He  was  a  very 
learned  man,  but  he  was  much  as- 
tonished at  something  that  he  had 
found  among  the  sea-weed.  The 
something  was  pink,  about  the 
shape  of  a  pear,  only  very  much 
smaller,  perhaps  as  large  as  two 
strawberries  might  be. 

The  man  held  the  something  in  his  hand.  The 
thing  seemed  to  be  spongy  when  he  felt  of  it. 

Just  then  a  boy  came  along. 

"  What  kind  of  a  fruit  do  you  call  that  ? "  asked 
the  learned  man,  holding  up  the  thing  he  had  found. 

The  boy  looked  at  it. 


162 


"SEA-PORK"  AND  ITS   CHANGES.  163 

"Oh!  that's  a  piece  of  sea-pork,"  said  he  carelessly. 

"  Sea-pork  !  "  repeated  the  learned  man,  looking  as- 
tonished, "  what  is  that  ?  I  never  heard  of  it  before." 

"I  don't  know,"  answered  the  boy.  "It's  alive; 
that  is,  some  pieces  are.  But  folks  around  here  just 
call  it  sea-pork." 

Now  I  could  have  told  that  learned  man  all  about 
"sea-pork,"  for  I  am  one  of  those  live  creatures  myself. 
Our  name  is  "  Tunicates,"  because  we  are  covered  by 
a  kind  of  leathery  tunic  or  coat.  Some  people  call  us 
"  Ascidians,"  which  is  a  very  good  name  to  describe  us 
by,  for  it  comes  from  an  old  Greek  word  that  means 
"  a  skin  bottle." 

We  do  look  like  some  queer  sea-fruit.  Some  of  us 
are  six  inches  long,  others  only  one  inch. 

Long,  long  ago  there  was  a  man  who  has  been 
called  the  "  Father  of  Zoology."  His  name  was 
Aristotle,  and  he  tried  to  find  out  whether  we  Tuni- 
cates should  be  called  animals  or  only  vegetables. 
You  know  that  when  we  are  fully  grown  we  have  a 
stem  that  fixes  us  to  rocks  or  mud  and  that  makes  us 
look  like  some  queer  vegetable  growing. 


1 64  "SEA-PORK"   AND  ITS   CHANGES. 

Aristotle  was  a  sharp  old  fellow,  and  he  knew  how 
to  use  his  eyes.  So  he  looked  at  us,  and  at  last  he 
said  that  we  were  animals  and  not  vegetables.  And 
he  spoke  the  truth. 

And  this  is  what  he  wrote  about  the  covering  we 
Tunicates  wear:  "It  may  be  cut  like  dry  leather. 
They  have  two  separate  openings  which  are  very 
small  and  difficult  to  notice,  one  to  take  in  and  the 
other  to  eject  the  water." 

Now,  when  I  was  little,  I  was  a  kind  of  tadpole. 
That  is  to  say,  I  had  a  tail,  and  by  means  of  wriggling 
it  considerably  fast  I  swam  through  the  salt  water.  I 
had,  too,  some  things  that  looked  like  arms. 

But  after  awhile  I  fixed  myself  to  a  rock,  and  my 
tail  vanished.  I  sent  out  projections  that  looked  like 
roots,  two  holes  appeared  in  me,  and  I  began  to  look 
like  a  full-grown  Ascidian,  or  "  sea-squirt,"  as  some 
people  call  us,  because  when  wre  are  touched  wre  squirt 
out  water. 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  a  man  who  tried  to  study 
us  Ascidians  became  blind  from  looking  at  too  small 
things.  You  see,  some  of  us  Ascidians  are  compound; 


"SEA-PORK"   AND  ITS   CHANGES.  167 

that  is,  a  great  many  little  ones  live  close  together  inside 
of  the  same  skin,  and  this  man,  whose  name  was  Jules 
Savigny,  and  wrho  was  the  first  man  of  modern  times 
to  find  out  what  we  Tunicates  are,  strained  his  eyes 
too  much  by  looking  at  things  so  little  as  one  of  these 
mites  of  Tunicates  \vould  be.  So  that  great  naturalist 
lost  his  sight,  and  I  am  sure  he  must  have  wished  that 
he  had  not  tried  quite  so  hard  to  study  "  sea-pork." 

When  a  great  many  of  us  live  together  inside  of 
one  skin,  each  of  us  sometimes  has  his  own  heart  and 
breathing  system.  In  other  kinds,  the  separate 
Tunicates  become  mixed  under  the  skin. 

Sometimes,  when  you  have  been  to  the  seashore 
maybe  you  have  turned  over  big  stones  and  have 
found  under  them  jelly  masses  of  different  colors  — 
yellow,  green,  blue,  or  purple --with  stars  on  them. 
Those  were  my  relatives,  Tunicates.  I  have  in  Green- 
land a  different  relative  that  has  a  covering  that  is  not 
leathery  like  mine,  but  horny,  and  is  called  Chelysoma; 
from  two  words  that  mean  "  a  tortoise  "  and  "  body." 

But  I  have  some  other  relatives  that  I  do  not  be- 
lieve you  have  ever  seen.  They  are  called  Pyrosoma, 


168  "SEA-PORK"   AND  ITS   CHANGES. 

or  "  fire-body,"  because  they  shine.  A  man  named 
Mr.  Huxley  once  wrote  about  these  shining  relatives 
of  mine.  He  said  that  it  was  hard  to  catch  them  as 
they  floated  in  the  sea,  because  they  were  not  on  the 
surface,  but  deeper  down.  But  some  were  caught  and 
put  into  a  bucket.  The  creatures  did  not  shine  all 

of  the  time,  but  the  light 
would  sometimes  be  quite 
bright,  and  then  in  a  few 
seconds  it  would  begin  to 
fade  till  all  was  dark. 

PYROSOMA. 

Another   man    saw 

some  of  these  shining  relatives  of  mine  when  he  was 
at  sea  in  a  squall.  There  were  great  multitudes  of 
the  creatures  floating  on  the  waves,  and  he  said  that 
those  Tunicates  near  the  surface  of  the  water  looked 
exactly  like  small,  shining  cylinders  of  iron. 

I  myself  can  neither  swim  nor  shine,  but  I  know 
that  those  Pyrosoma  folks  are  from  two  to  fourteen 
inches  long,  and  I  think  that  a  fourteen-inches  one 
must  be  quite  a  sight  when  it  makes  up  its  mind  to 
shine.  I  should  have  said  their  mind,  though,  for 


"SEA-PORK"   AND  ITS   CHANGES.  169 

one  of  those  cylinders  is  made  of  ever  so  many  small 
creatures  placed  side  by  side. 

I  have  some  very  tiny  red  relatives  that  float 
freely,  too.  Once,  when  some  men  were  cruising  off 
the  north  coast  of  Scotland,  they  saw  cloudy  red 
patches  of  coloring  matter  in  the  water.  Some  of  the 
red  matter  was  dipped  up  and  put  under  a  microscope, 
and  the  red  turned  out  to  be  some  of  my  little  rela- 
tives. These  relatives  are  said  to  be  the  lowest  form 
of  us  Ascidians,  and  they  have  a  name  longer  than 
themselves,  I  think.  The  name  is  Appendicularia. 

We  Ascidians  cannot  see,  and  we  have  no  shells, 
of  course.  We  have  hearts,  though,  and  our  blood 
circulates ;  but  there  is  one  queer  thing  about  us. 
Sometimes  our  blood  will*  turn  back  and  flow  in  the 
opposite  direction  from  that  in  which  the  current  has 
been  going.  In  those  Ascidians  that  live  all  together, 
each  has  its  own  heart  and  breathing  apparatus,  but 
the  circulation  of  the  blood  is  common  to  some 
extent. 

One  of  the  Ascidians  is  red  and  about  the  size  of 
a  currant,  and  in  some  places  this  relative  of  mine 


I/O 


"SEA-PORK"   AND  IIS   CHANGES. 


usually  lodges  in  oysters.  This  troublesome  person 
has  a  near  relative  that  is  a  parasite  on  living  lobsters. 
I  forgot  to  tell  you  one  thing  about  my  Pyrosoma 
relatives.  A  Brazilian  named  Bibra  once  caught  six 
Pyrosoma,  and,  as  he  was  on  ship-board,  he  used  them 
to  light  his  cabin.  The  light  given  out  by  the  Pyro- 
soma was  bright  enough 
so  that  he  could  read  to 
one  of  his  friends  a  de- 
scription he  had  written 
of  the  little  light-bearers. 
A  naturalist  once  sailed 
on  the  warm  Mozambique 
current  east  of  the  cape.  He  afterwards  told  wrhat  he 
saw.  He  said  that  quite  suddenly  as  they  entered  the 
warm  current  the  ocean  seemed  full  of  life.  The  whole 
sea  was  covered  with  animals  of  various  kinds,  and  for 
more  than  t\vo  days  the  folks  sailed  through  fields  of 
giant  Pyrosomata  that  "  swam  so  close  together  that 
at  night  the  whole  ocean,  out  to  the  farthest  horizon, 
shone  with  their  blue  gleam  as  if  in  broad  moonlight." 


"ANIMAL  LIFE." 


BOSSY'S    MOOINGS. 

IT  is  too  bad  that  Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut  has  such 
afflictions.  She  is  a  very  troubled  hen,  and  all  her 
sorrow  has  been  caused  by  the  white  cat.  He  is  a 
rascal,  and  I  believe  he  has  eaten  all  of  Mrs.  Cutkee- 
dahcut's  chickens  this  year.  At  least,  I  saw  him 
eating  Chippy,  the  youngest  of  Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut's 
infants,  and  her  others  disappeared  mysteriously. 

I  take  great  interest  in  all  the  inhabitants  of  this 
barnyard  and  I  am  sorry  for  Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut,  not- 
withstanding her  unkind  remarks  about  the  intellect 
of  cows.  She  always  was  a  gossiping  hen,  but  the 
time  that  she  made  fun  of  cows  was  once  when  she 
was  very  tired  of  sitting  on  the  eggs  before  the  chicks 
came.  Maybe  her  being  tired  made  her  feel  more  like 
making  impolite  remarks,  but  any  way  she  -began  to 


£OSS  Y  'S  MOO  INGS. 

cackle  about  the  stupidity  of  cows  in  general,  and  she 
told  a  story  about  a  cow  in  the  southern  part  of  Asia; 
Thibet  was  the  country  she  mentioned,  I  believe. 

Well,  Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut's  story  was  this :  It  seems 
that  two  men  were  traveling  in  that  country,  and  one 
day  a  Lama  herdsman  who  lived  in  the  same  house 
with  them  came,  looking  very  sad,  to  say  that  a  little 
calf  of  his  was  dying.  Now  the  cows  in  that  country 
are  very  hard  to  milk,  and  the  herdsmen  almost  always 
let  them  have  their  calves  near  at  milking-time,  so  that 
the  cows  will  lick  them  and  will  not  pay  much  attention 
to  what  the  milkman  is  doing. 

But  how  was  the  Lama  to  milk  his  cow,  now  that 
the  little  calf  was  dead  ? 

This  was  what  Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut  said  that  Lama 
did.  He  took  the  skin  off  the  little  dead  calf  and 
stuffed  the  skin  with  hay. 

The  next  morning,  when  milking-time  came,  the 
herdsman  took  the  milk-pail  in  one  hand  and  the  hay- 
calf  under  the  other  arm  and  started  for  the  cow-yard. 
The  hay-calf  had  neither  head  nor  feet,  for  the  Lama 
had  not  thought  it  necessary  to  add  them.  He  laid 


. 


BOSSY'S  MOO  INGS. 


175 


the  hay-calf  down  before  the  cow.  She  looked  at  it, 
smelt  of  it,  and  believed  that  it  was  her  own  little  calf. 
So  she  began  to  lick  it,  and  the  man  milked  peacefully. 

And  that  cow,  so  Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut  said,  really 
continued  to  believe  that  that  was  her  calf.  At  last, 
one  day,  in  the  midst  of  her  licking,  some  place  in  the 
calf-hide  broke,  and  the 
hay  that  the  calf  was 
stuffed  with  came  out. 

Then,  Mrs.  Cut- 
keedahcut said,  almost 
any  one  would  have 
expected  that  the  cow 
would  have  seen  through  the  cheat,  and  would  have 

<z> 

been  angry  at  the  way  she  had  been  deceived. 

But  that  cowr  was  not.  She  did  not  seem  to  be  in 
the  least  surprised,  but  began  to  eat  the  hay  !  And 
Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut  said  that  she  believed  that  cows 
think  that  calves  are  stuffed  with  hay,  usually. 

I  do  not  know  whether  they  are  or  not,  I  am  sure. 
I  don't  see  any  reason  why  they  might  not  be.  I 
have  seen  them  eat  hay. 


176 


BOSS  Y'S  MOO  INGS. 


Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut  said  that  she  should  like  to  see 
any  person  stuff  a  dead  chicken  with  hay  and  give  it 
to  her  for  a  real  one  !  She  did  not  believe  that  any 
one  could  do  that  and  cheat  her. 

But  I   know  one  thing,  Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut  is  not 

so  very  smart,  for  once  she 
sat  on  a  porcelain  make- 
believe  egg  for  three  weeks, 
and  expected  to  have  a 
chicken  from  such  a  thing. 
So  hens  are  not  so  very 
much  more  smart  than 
cows,  after  all. 

I  told  Mrs.  Cutkeedah- 
cut that  any  way  calves  used 
to  be  worshiped  in  old  times 
in  Egypt. 

And  then  Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut  said  that  was  wicked. 
But  just  then  the  rooster  reminded  her  that  hens 
used  to  be  thought  sacred  in  old  times  by  the  Druids 
in  England. 

I  told  her  that  she  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  have 


MRS.    CUTKEEDAHCUT. 


BOSSY'S  MOOINGS.  17? 

any  connection  with  the  old  Druids.  And  so  the 
remarks  went  on. 

But  I  am  really  sorry  for  Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut  in 
spite  of  her  evil  remarks,  for  all  her  five  children  are 
gone,  and  nobody  has  brought  her  back  even  a  stuffed 
hay-chicken  for  her  comfort. 

I  was  glad  while  they  were  talking  of  so  many  old- 
time  things  that  one  fact  that  I  am  ashamed  of  was 
not  mentioned.  Perhaps  the  folks  in  this  barnyard 
never  heard  of  the  fact,  and  I  need  not  have  felt 
worried  lest  any  one  should  speak  of  it.  Sometimes, 
when  the  old  Highlanders  wanted  to  know  anything 
about  the  future,  they  would  take  the  hide  of  a  cow 
and  go  off  to  some  lonely  place.  There  one  of  the 
men  would  put  on  the  cow's  hide,  covering  all  of  him- 
self but  his  head.  Then  he  would  wait  in  the  dark- 
ness and  fog  till  he  thought  that  some  invisible  beings 
had  given  him  answers  to  the  questions  he  asked. 
What  the  cow's  hide  had  to  do  with  so  silly  a  practice 
I  do  not  know,  but  the  Highlanders  were  very 
superstitious. 

I     suppose    that     Mrs.    Cutkeedahcut    would    be 


173 


BOSSY'S   MOO  INGS. 


pleased  to  learn  that  a  Scottish  chief  once  lost  his 
right  of  chieftainship  for  speaking  of  killing  some 
hens.  This  young  chief  of  Clanrannald  had  just 
returned  to  take  possession  of  his  estate,  and,  when  he 
noticed  how  many  cattle  the  people  had  killed  in  honor 

of  his  coming,  he  very 
foolishly  said  that  if 
they  had  killed  a  few 
hens  it  would  have 
done  just  as  well  as  to 
have  wasted  so  many 
cattle. 

The  clansmen  were 
very  angry  at  this  re- 
mark, for  they  thought 
it  showed  that  the  young  man  did  not  care  much  for 
the  feelings  of  his  people,  and  they  cried  out,  "We 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  a  hen-chief,"  and  they 
immediately  took  the  chieftaincy  from  the  young  man 
and  gave  it  to  one  of  his  brothers.  But  I  suppose  if 
I  should  tell  this  story  to  Mrs.  Cutkeedahcut  she 
would  indignantly  inquire  why  a  "  hen-chief  "  was  not 


SITTING   ON   A    MAKE-BELIEVE   EGG. 


BOSSY'S  MOO  INGS.  179 

as  good  as  a  "  cattle-chief,"  so  I  suppose  I  had  better 
keep  still  about  the  matter. 

From  this  barnyard  I  can  see  a  peach-tree  over 
the  fence  where  the  orchard  begins,  and  that  tree 
sometimes  makes  me  think  of  a  foolish  thing  that 
used  to  be  said  about  cattle.  It  was  that  if  the  leaves 
of  a  peach-tree  fell  before  their  time,  that  was  a  sign 
that  cattle  would  be  sick  or  die.  But  I  do  not  find 
that  the  growing  or  falling  of  the  leaves  of  that  peach- 
tree  affects  my  health  in  the  least. 


/ 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    000  589  495     1 


